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Ashley Nichols called out sWooZie over AI use of her design

sWooZie replied in a pinned YouTube comment that commissioned art is his to use and said he would reinvest AI-driven output into hiring animators.

Animator Ashley Nichols said sWooZie put a character design she made for him into AI-assisted animation in a new upload, after viewers flagged machine-generated movement in the video.

Nichols wrote, "I did make it for him to use and was paid for it, but I wouldn't have wanted it used this way." Her credits include Hazbin Hotel, Animaniacs, and her series Far-Fetched.

Former sWooZie collaborator RushLight Invader called the choice "a massive slap in the face to your audience and all your former artists." Other artists picked up Nichols' posts the same day.

In a pinned comment on the upload, sWooZie wrote that "AI raises a lot of concerns about artists' livelihood" and that the animators who work on his channel "give my characters life." He said every character design is commissioned, paid for, and owned by him.

sWooZie said he spent three years trying to finish the project with human animators who ultimately could not complete it. He plans to test more frequent AI-assisted videos and put the revenue toward larger artist budgets, writing, "This isn't me being cruel or cutting corners." He asked viewers for alternatives but did not explain why Nichols' design appeared in the AI sequence.