Culture & Arts
A traditional demon-queller faces digital-age scams that come dressed in human language.
01 / Background
We created this piece for the VACAT Awards AI Graphic Visual track, where a single image had to connect a traditional figure clearly with a social problem of today. Starting from the idea that “the ancients drove out ghosts; today we drive out fraud,” Anti-Fraud Zhong Kui turns fake customer service, top-up rebates and get-rich-quick promises into a monstrous tree bearing down on the human world, so the scam becomes something viewers recognize at a glance.
The concept also centers on temptation and human judgment. In the crowd below, some people are climbing upward, while others struggle, cry for help or drag their families down with them. What Zhong Kui's sword faces is a scam tangled up with greed. The mythic gesture reflects a very real situation.
02 / Creative Highlights
In the canopy you can read “Top-up rebates up to 50%,” “Insider tip, guaranteed profit,” forged certificates and fake customer-service messages, with little demons hiding among the branches. From afar it is a grey-black tree looming over the world; up close it is full of familiar scam lines. Either way, the image is about fighting fraud.
Zhong Kui sits on the right of the frame. His red robe, the ink-like afterimage behind him and his raised sword carry the eye diagonally upward. The roots on the left and the canopy above are dense, and a band of empty space in the middle separates the two sides. The sword has already swung, but the tree has not yet fallen: the image freezes the instant just before the crisis breaks.
The roots wrap around the elderly, the young and whole families, with words of greed placed beside each figure. A woman holding a baby, a man climbing upward and someone crying out for help all appear at once. Temptation, concern for family and the feeling of being trapped are all in the picture, so the anti-fraud message doesn't rest on an imposing deity alone.
The word “Anti-Fraud” is engraved on the sword, directly facing the false promises in the canopy. Zhong Kui's hat, beard and robe keep his traditional, recognizable look, while the modern anti-fraud theme is carried by the words on the blade, the fragments of scam messages and the situations of the crowd.
03 / Final Works
Start with the full final artwork, then look closely at the canopy and the people beneath the tree. For how the image took shape over four rounds of composition, see “Case Study.”
Image 01
On the left, a grey-black monstrous tree presses down on the human world; on the right, Zhong Kui in red robes leaps up and swings his sword, trailing a red-and-black ink afterimage that leads the eye from the lower right to the tip of the blade. A wide band of empty space in the middle separates the two sides; the sword has swung, but the tree has not fallen. The word “Anti-Fraud” is engraved on the sword. A3 portrait, 3508×4961 px.
Image 02
The canopy is hung with text messages, forged business licenses and fake links, and you can read “Top-up rebates up to 50%” and “Insider tip, guaranteed profit,” with little demons hiding among the branches. From afar it is a tree; up close it is all familiar scam lines.
Image 03
Some are still climbing the tree, some have been drained and lie slumped among the roots, and some cry out for help; a mother holding her child reaches out to pull back a man who is climbing. Each person carries a golden bubble reading “Overnight riches,” “Small stake, big win” or “Easy money.”
04 / Results
Completed the A3 portrait Anti-Fraud Zhong Kui artwork at 3508×4961 px and 300 dpi, submitted to the AI Graphic Visual track in the image category of the VACAT Awards.
Case Study
Zhong Kui has been catching ghosts for more than a thousand years.
Today's ghosts no longer have green faces and fangs. They go by names like “guaranteed profit,” “insider tip” and “customer service rep Xiaomei.”
This is “Anti-Fraud Zhong Kui,” an original work Liandan AI Studio created for the AI Graphic Visual track in the image category of the VACAT Awards.
One A3 portrait, and four rounds of composition.
01
In the same series, the God of Wealth has his body replaced with graphics cards and circuit boards. For Zhong Kui we did the opposite: the old god keeps his old look and simply takes on a new job.
His hat, beard and red robe are all drawn the traditional way, so he is instantly recognizable as Zhong Kui. Everything modern is placed on his opponent.
Before starting, we boiled the brief down to one line: ghosts ride in on greed; fraud slips in wearing human words. The scam comes from outside, but what lets it in is often a little greed in people's hearts.
So the image needed three things at once: the scam itself, the people being deceived, and Zhong Kui with his sword.
02
The first round tested the action: Zhong Kui in red robes crouches low and slashes sideways at scam messages scattering like shreds of paper. The pose looked great, but the image only showed “fighting.” You couldn't tell where the scam came from or who it was targeting.
The second round drew the scam as a tree: the canopy hung with signs like “high returns” and “insider tips,” the roots wrapping around a row of people below, and Zhong Kui bursting out of the middle of the trunk with a sword in one hand and a mirror in the other. The problem was obvious: stuck in the middle of the tree, he looked trapped inside it.
In the third round we moved him out to the right, in midair, facing the big tree on the left head-on. The mirror was dropped and only the sword kept. A wide band of empty space opened up in the middle, dense on one side and open on the other, which made the direction of the strike even clearer.
Once the composition was settled, we removed the large title from the image and gave the whole frame to the content: the scam messages at the top became more specific, with forged certificates and red envelopes clearly visible. The fourth round focused on refining this single image. First we added a red-and-black ink afterimage behind Zhong Kui, tried several densities, and chose the one that leads the eye from the lower right to the tip of the sword.
03
At first, the crowd was just a row of silhouettes looking up and crying for help.
But in reality, many people are deceived not because they don't know better, but because of greed: even when someone warns them, they keep believing and keep climbing.
So we broke the crowd apart: some still climbing the tree, some drained and slumped among the roots, some crying out for help. Each person carries a golden bubble reading “Overnight riches,” “Small stake, big win” or “Easy money.” In the final version we added a family tug-of-war: a mother holding her child reaches out to pull back a man who is climbing.
From a distance, viewers see a monstrous tree bearing down on the world; up close, they can find people from their own lives beneath it.
04
The hardest part of anti-fraud messaging is that everyone has heard the advice, yet it's hard to make an image that makes people stop and look.
This image turns abstract warnings into things you can point to: the lies are written on the tree, the greed is written on the people, and Zhong Kui's sword points at the space between them.
In terms of process, we first wrote the brief clearly before generating images. Once the direction was set, we kept refining that one image instead of branching out. The final output is A3 at 3508×4961 px, ready for print display.
The same approach works for government and public-interest campaigns: pair a social issue with a familiar traditional figure, then write the specific risks into the image.
FAQ
Yes. “Anti-Fraud Zhong Kui” paints real, common scam lines such as “Top-up rebates up to 50%” and “Insider tip, guaranteed profit,” along with forged licenses, directly into the canopy, so viewers recognize them up close. The people under the tree carry words like “Overnight riches” and “Easy money,” tying the scam to greed.
We changed none of the traditional features: the official's hat, thick beard, glaring eyes, red robe and sword all follow the folk image. Modern elements are placed only on the scam and the crowd, so Zhong Kui is instantly recognizable while the theme belongs to today.
Yes. This final artwork was output as an A3 portrait at 3508×4961 px and 300 dpi, and the canvas size was checked before delivery.
We started the brief in mid-to-late August, first writing the requirements and text plan, then went through four rounds of composition and refinement. The final artwork came together within a few days, and the A3 entry was submitted at the end of August.
Approach
During ideation, we first worked out how the deity, the scam, inner temptation and the people being protected relate to one another, then translated that into a portrait composition: Zhong Kui leaps and swings his sword on the right, facing the monstrous tree on the left, with a wide band of empty space in between so the action stands out.
Everything in the image serves one question: can people understand the theme? The scam content at the top is spelled out clearly and specifically, while the people below, young and old, are shown in different states: still climbing, already trapped, or being pulled back by family. In this way, the abstract ideas of scams and greed become concrete words and relationships in the picture.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
