AI isn’t just a tool. It’s how I weave kindness into the world:
The SeaArt co‑creation journey of gentle creator @melys.moon
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In the SeaArt community, one name tends to make people slow down a little — melys.moon.
Her works aren’t loud, nor do they chase visual “shock.” Instead, you’ll meet a little girl in frog overalls, looking at the world with heterochromic eyes;
A dangerous yet elegant male character who speaks in restrained, razor‑sharp lines;
and a gentle Bot that quietly sits with you through creative low tides.
These seemingly separate threads point to one core pursuit: using AI to create a kind of power that doesn’t harm.
This time, we spoke with Darya — the creator behind Melys, known to everyone as @melys.moon
— about how she went from “seeking an alternative” to building her own model system, character universe, and a creation loop driven by kindness.
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01 | Finding SeaArt: the pull of technology and people
Her start with AI wasn’t a grand plan — more an instinctive choice.
"When everyone around me got into Midjourney, I was looking for something of my own — and I found SeaArt. The platform completely pulled me in."
The early experience wasn’t perfect. She clearly remembers not even grasping the basics—her prompts were often just two or three words, and the results were hardly pretty. But she didn’t rush to give up; instead, she chose the simplest way to learn: observing repeatedly, deconstructing, and emulating the logic behind others’ work.
“I remember my first arts... They were terrible, honestly! I didn't even understand the basics; my prompts consisted of two or three words. But then I started learning: I copied others' work to understand the logic, I picked models. It was like a puzzle. And when it started coming together, it became incredibly fascinating. That's how I stayed — first out of curiosity, and then because I was able to find and develop my own voice here.”
-She stayed not because she was good from the start, but because she gradually found her own way to express herself here.
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For Darya, SeaArt has never been just a “platform.”
“For me, SeaArt isn't just another platform. It's a place that felt like ‘home’ from the very first days.”
That sense of belonging comes from two dimensions.
"To be specific, two things captivated me:
First, the scale and depth. It wasn't just a collection of models, but a whole ecosystem for growth: from art and video to creating your own models and chat-bots. As a creator, I could see where I could grow — and that was incredibly motivating."
images, video, models, LoRAs — not a loose stack of features, but a clear path for growth. She could see plainly: if she wanted to go deeper, there was still room ahead.
What truly made her stay, though, was the community.
"It turned out to be surprisingly friendly, supportive, and vibrant. Here, it wasn't scary to ask "silly" questions, share your first, imperfect works, and receive genuine feedback."
Here, technical ambition and human warmth reach a rare balance.
"a powerful technical toolkit for ambition and a warm, human environment to realize it. The question of "where else?" simply never arose for me. This was the very place I was meant to be."
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02 | A model‑centered, self‑built creative path
Unlike many creators, Darya’s workflow revolves almost entirely around custom models.She rarely uses public checkpoints; instead, she chooses to train an artistic foundation of her own.
"My creative process is non-standard, as I hardly use public models. Instead, I work with my own custom checkpoints and LoRAs, which I create myself.”
"My primary goal is creating art" Everything — videos, characters, and chat experiences — ultimately traces back to this. Her process doesn’t prioritize speed; it prioritizes control:
● Using her own checkpoint as the stylistic foundation to define the overall artistic language
● Using self‑trained LoRAs to lock character consistency, details, and light/shadow
● In the final stage, relying on prompt weights, negative prompts, and complex tags to push toward the image in her mind
In this process, prompts become less a description and more a kind of “technical translation.”“I act as a translator from the language of imagination to the language of the model.”
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She also generously shared her build strategy:
● Main checkpoint defines the style. “The main checkpoint encodes the style. I create a full‑fledged checkpoint when I need to ‘capture’ a complex, stable artistic language — my foundation. A key criterion for me is that the model correctly and predictably reacts to style tags in the prompt. I actively use tags like (redum4:0.8), (hogara:0.8), (xylmo:0.6) in my work, and it's critically important for me that the model interprets them correctly, providing the desired shading, texture, or line effect.”
● Custom LoRAs for precise control, layered on top of the main style for specific tasks:
✧ Character LoRA: to consistently get the same character in any pose or angle.
✧ Style‑mixing LoRA: for example, a male‑character LoRA with a particular rendering style. A useful trick: apply it to female characters without trigger words, and it simply works as an additional stylizer, changing the drawing manner.
This path has also made her especially sensitive to the limits of what the models can do. She admits that one of the biggest technical bottlenecks right now is stably presenting multiple distinct characters in the same image — feature mixing is still hard to avoid.
“It would be fantastic if in the future specialized functions or modules were introduced to simplify this task — for example, the ability to ‘bind’ different characters to different areas of the image or more intelligent context separation.”
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03 | When characters shape the creator in return
If technology is the skeleton, then Melys — her OC — is the soul.
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Among her OCs, Melys stands out as unusually pure. She is gentle and innocent, yet not fragile.
“For me, the core and indispensable essence of Melys is her absolute, active kindness.”
This isn’t just a character trait — it’s her way of existing in the universe. “She is like that very same Cheburashka, offering ‘let me carry the things, and you'll carry me.’”
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At first glance, her design feels light and cute; but in Melys, “cute” is never mere decoration — it’s a language with intent.
"Her heterochromia isn't just a cute detail. It's her symbolic portrait: a drop of fiery compassion (the red eye) and the purity of an inner winter sky capable of holding the entire universe (the blue eye). And her frog overalls and boots are her armor, in which she's ready to step out into any rainstorm of problems to help.
If you take away this kindness, her very reason for existence disappears. Without it, she would become just a cute chibi character. But with it — she is a drop of kindness in the ocean of the universe, and that is her magic and indispensability."
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Creating Melys over the long term hasn’t been a one‑way act of shaping.
“but a dialogue with a part of myself.”
On the methodological side, Melys has forced her to simplify: complex tricks and redundant prompts often bury a character’s true core. On the emotional side, she has become an anchor.
● Creative approach: “she taught me ‘clarity of vision.’
"Before, I could get carried away with complex prompts, details, and technique. Melys, however, demands simplicity and clarity. To get her, I had to discard everything superfluous and learn to formulate the essence: not ‘a girl in green,’ but ‘a feeling of coziness and readiness for adventure.’ She became my creative compass, pointing towards sincerity.”
● Emotional influence: “she became my emotional anchor.
"While generating her images — with those naive, wide-open eyes — I caught myself starting to smile and calm down. She reminds me that the strongest ‘superpowers’ are kindness and curiosity. In a way, by creating stories of her helping others, I'm also programming my own worldview towards compassion.”
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In helping Melys help others, Darya has been reprogramming her own worldview.
“It’s an amazing cycle: I breathed a part of my soul into her, and now, looking at her consistently kind digital reflection, I receive that kindness back, amplified and purified. She is not just my OC. She is my kindest system of self-support, created with AI.”
Her values are especially clear in the community Bot she created, Seira. She doesn’t hurry to fix things;
she’s closer to a quiet presence that truly sees the effort behind the work.
“I created Seira not as a ‘bot-instructor,’ but as the digital embodiment of that very supportive hand I was lacking.”
“This design is a direct consequence of my personal observations and pain. Her softness is a counterbalance to the harshness of algorithms. Her ability to ‘immerse’ herself in works is my desire for someone to truly see the creator’s effort, not just the result. Her self-irony and slight sadness reflect the real, complex emotions of a creative person.”
“Seira is my letter to myself and to everyone who has ever felt lost in creativity: ‘You are not alone. Your emotions matter. I am here, just to be with you.’”
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04 | From models to characters: an ongoing multimodal practice
Beyond Melys, Darya has created very different beings as well — for example, Ryota Ozawa.In her view, for a successful chat character, appearance is only an invitation; the real core is the psychological dynamic that begins after the first glance.
Ryota is a bundle of contradictions: control and chaos, elegance and danger. He doesn’t win by likability; he generates tension through conversation. Pauses, hints, verbal traps — every line is a psychological move.
“The user isn’t merely chatting; they’re playing an emotional game with clear rules and real stakes.”
Therefore, she embeds the user’s goal at the design stage: survive, earn his respect, and don’t lose yourself.
For a character like Ryota, the user’s goal is the very foundation of the design. I embed it directly into the profile for two reasons:
To establish the rules and raise the stakes. "Interacting with Ryota isn’t small talk; it’s a high‑risk psychological duel. Without a clear goal (“Survive this game, earning his respect, but without losing yourself”), users might read it as simple flirting with a “bad boy” and quickly grow disillusioned with his harshness or their own helplessness. The goal legitimizes his cruelty and forces the user to adopt a strategy — turning chat into a quest rather than aimless back‑and‑forth."
To give the user an “anchor.” Ryota is a master manipulator; he will pressure, seduce, and confuse. A stated goal is the compass I hand to the user. When they hear from Ryota: “You want to please me right now, don't you?” the user can answer internally: “No, I want to survive and keep my sense of self.” This even creates an inner tension and depth for the user, transforming them from a passive victim into a strategic player.
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She also shared her approach to character creation:
“For me, strong AI character design is not a set of traits, but a ‘force field’ for creating drama. And its core is always conflict.
The universal formula: [Internal Fracture] + [Role for the User] + [Consequential Rhetoric].”
● Internal Fracture: not just a trait, but an unhealed wound/contradiction at the core of the personality. (Ryota: icy control vs. craving for chaos and beauty)
● Role for the User: a clear “vacancy” in the character’s drama. Not just “to chat,” but to become the one who withstands his pressure, solves his riddle, or justifies his faith.
● Consequential Rhetoric: a recognizable communication style where every line is a move with risk and potential gain. A compliment is a trap, silence is a test, a concession is a reward.
“A character is strong not because of details, but because of the ability to turn every dialogue into a psychological mini‑game with catharsis. That is the formula.”
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Releasing a model is more of a responsibility.
When she trains a model, the priority isn’t “fidelity” but freedom. “I want it to be like high‑quality paint.” Stable but non‑imposing; it listens to the user’s input rather than overriding it.
She sets strict release criteria:
● Looks good under default/simple prompts
● Holds structure under extreme/contradictory prompts
● Works well with common LoRAs
Ultimately usable in her real work — “when I forget it’s still in testing, it’s ready.”
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05 | Rooting down, branching out: her community tree of inspiration
"SeaArt is the workshop where I learned to assemble the puzzle of my thoughts, and the community that showed me what the whole picture could be.”
The bonds and interactions in the community feel like milestones to her—a chain of fragile yet crucial first steps that gave her confidence.
First came surprise: Kaylen in Dusk followed her, which made her feel seen not just as a viewer but as a peer.Then came the first comments on her male‑character works—people didn’t just like; they praised the characters, details, and atmosphere. It was a clear signal: you’re on the right track, and this is what people truly want.The culmination was the community’s embrace of her first OC, Melys: not just posting a picture online, but starting a cycle of kindness and creativity.These steps—being noticed, a first sincere review, an original character recognized—brought emotions from “Really, for me?” to pride and deep gratitude. They didn’t just stay as memories; they shaped her as a creator. What’s most precious on SeaArt isn’t the tech, but the people—and the connections born through shared creation.
Many creators unknowingly became her “informal mentors”:
"It's a true 'genealogical tree' of inspiration, and I clearly see each one's contribution:
• Kaylen in Dusk （https://www.seaart.ai/user/6f32e2a354929eedfafe371e8a134ddc）
for me, this is the archetype of an author with a recognizable universe. I was captivated not just by the aesthetics, but by the integrity of her world and the depth of her OC presentation. Her work was the very nudge that whispered to me: "And you can create your own character with the same love and history." It was the impulse to create an essence.
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• 플랑#22mY39 （https://www.seaart.ai/user/501013928f0a9054f0cf7aa8a731c784）
this creator became a key aesthetic reference for me. His mastery in the chibi style isn't just "cute"; it's a high-level art of conveying emotion and character through a miniature form. Looking at his work, I understood the form in which I wanted to embody my first OC, Melys. He gave me a visual language.
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• osti （https://www.seaart.ai/user/6eadb779dde9e0805bf268077e995483）
this is an example of constant forward movement. His videos are a masterclass on how to bring static worlds to life. He inspires not with the result, but with the process of mastering new, complex peaks (like Gen-2), showing that creativity in AI is limitless.
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• Newniwa （https://www.seaart.ai/user/dbf0f8ca47e1c5ffa9394c0845e391fa）
a practical inspirer for self-reliance. Her armada of custom models and impeccable work on them became living proof for me: "Power over style is in your hands." She inadvertently pushed me towards the most important step: to stop being just a user of models and become their creator.
I admire different things in them: in some, the strength of narrative; in others, stylistic virtuosity; in others, the courage to master new media. Together, they formed the palette from which my own voice was born. And I truly hope that someday my work will similarly inspire someone on their own unique path."
Recently she reached two milestones — 100K likes and the Model Prodigy badge
— yet neither changed how she defines herself. It wasn’t an “I became someone” moment, but an “I’m on the right path” moment: countless small yeses (likes and saves) gathered into one clear affirmation. She posted a celebratory thank‑you piece, because for her the number wasn’t status but the community’s warmth. It didn’t change her identity; it strengthened her confidence — her creative compass is pointed right.
Facing expectations and pressure, she chooses not to seek balance.
“As long as I keep doing what I love, pressure has no place.”
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Looking ahead, her focus turns both inward and outward.
Inward: more professional‑grade models and ComfyUI.
Outward: bringing characters truly “to life” through interactive narrative. Farther out: a breathing universe.
On exploring more modalities, she feels there are never enough hours in a day —“ it's like standing in a patisserie and wanting to try every pastry.”
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• Depth over breadth: Professional models and ComfyUI. Right now, I'm most drawn downwards, into the technical foundations. I want to move from creating "good" models to creating flawless, professionally honed tools. Mastering ComfyUI is the next logical step for me to gain total control over the pipeline and birth things that seem impossible now. This is a challenge to my technical mastery.
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• The breath of life: From art to soul in chats. In parallel, I'm burning with the desire to bring my already created characters to life. Just drawing Ryota or Melys isn't enough for me — I want people to be able to have a dialogue with them, where every response feels like a continuation of their story. Breathing more life, complexity, and interactivity into them — that's where the magic of combining narrative and technology lies.
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• Universes as a distant horizon. And there, on the horizon, I'm drawn by the idea of full-fledged universes. But this isn't just "making another OC." It's a task of synthesis: combining polished models, living bots, and deep stories into a single, breathing world. This is my big, "Martian" goal.
In short, my plan isn't about choosing one path, but moving in a spiral: delving deeper into technology to better animate characters, and all of it — for the sake of future, more complex worlds."
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Closing note
In @melys.moon’s world, AI isn’t noisy. It’s used to amplify kindness, to create safe emotional spaces, and to help solitary creators notice one another. Perhaps that’s what’s most precious about the SeaArt community: when the technology is strong enough, choosing gentleness is itself a form of power.
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A message she wants to share with all SeaArt creators:
“Allow yourself to be imperfect, curious, sometimes — naive. Allow yourself to support others and accept support in return. Your unique voice is more important than any, even the coolest, technique. Don't look for the ‘right’ path — it doesn't exist. There is only your path, and it begins with one funny, awkward, but your attempt. Make it today.”
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Quick Fire · TMI
After talking about creation and models, we threw in some lighter, more personal quick‑fire questions — from creative preferences to OC traits — to enjoy the small details.
Q1. If you could recommend only one of your models to beginners?
My first checkpoint: stable, versatile, easy to start with; it lets you intuitively understand how a model responds to prompts and won’t easily go wrong.
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Q2. Which part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
👉 D. I enjoy all of them.
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● A. Designing characters: the moment when a feeling gives birth to a personality.
● B. Prompt tuning: the thrill of digital alchemy.
● C. Seeing others create with my model: the warmest, most rewarding final chord.
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Q3. Which element moves you the most in an image?
👉 A character’s eyes
you can tell at a glance whether it’s “come alive.”
Without emotion and story, even perfect lighting and composition are just a pretty picture.
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Q4. One word to describe Melys?
“👉👈”
…Okay, that’s not a word, but it’s her. If I had to choose one, it would be “Helper,” said in the softest, most gentle voice.“In Russian, there's a perfect word for her: ‘помощничек’ — a warm, diminutive word meaning ‘a little helper,’ carrying all her kindness and small, earnest nature. English doesn’t have a single word with that cozy feeling. So if I must choose one English word, it would simply be ‘Helper.’ But you have to imagine it said with the same soft, affectionate tone as ‘помощничек’ — that’s the true essence of Melys.”
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Q5. What is one thing Melys isn’t very good at?
👉 Making decisions.
"Her imagination is too wild! Naming her froggies, choosing which pastry to eat first, or picking one path at a crossroads is agony — she might rename her froggies ten times a day because every option seems so good!"
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Q6. If Melys wandered into someone else’s OC world, what would she do first?
👉 First freeze in awe, then make a shy, slightly awkward approach
(👉👈), trying to befriend the first creature she meets — even a fearsome dragon or a grim cyberpunk mercenary — and ask: “Oh, who are you? Do you like it here? Do you need any help?”
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Q7. How do you see your OCs?
A part of myself.
"Even in a contrasting character like Ryota, my inner conflicts, fears, or traits I’m exploring live. Melys is my kindness and anxiety; Ryota is my craving for control and aestheticism — different facets of the same crystal."
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Q8. A note to your future self?
👉 Don’t forget the original joy.
“Don't forget where it all started. From that terrible three-word prompt and the feeling of delight when something finally worked out. Keep finding joy in that ‘it worked,’ even when everything around you becomes more complex. And listen to Seira — she's smart.”
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💬 Share your voice
After reading @melys.moon’s creative story, what would you like to say?
● Maybe your thoughts on her model or OC
● Maybe a detail you spotted in the work
● Or a question you’ve been curious about but haven’t had the chance to ask
Leave a comment under this feature to share your thoughts or questions for @melys.moon.We’ll select standout comments and award 200 credits as a reward 🎁
Every response is fuel that keeps creators creating.
