Finally, an App That Turns Your Selfie into an Anime Character

The Android app TwinFACE promises to give you "the opportunity to create an anime picture based on a real selfie." But it does a terrible job. — *Image: TwinFACE/Victor Tangermann*

Anime-ted

There are countless uses for neural networks: one composes terrifying jazz, and another dreams up an entire text adventure game in real time.

So it should come as no surprise that a smartphone app called TwinFACE, now available on the Google Play store, is designed to transform your selfie into an anime character.

Caveat Emptor

TwinFACE uses the same open-source UGATIT code as an AI developed earlier this year by a team of South Korean researchers from video game company NCSoft.

But there’s one catch: it doesn’t do a very good job. The resulting portraits are, frankly, terrible and in some instances pretty scary. No wonder it’s got a 2.5 star rating on the Google Play store based on 256 reviews.

Futurism’s in-depth investigation revealed that the app sometimes adds a grotesque third eye, randomly rotates facial features, and generally confuses skin and hair textures.

Oddly Specific

Unfortunately, even a pair of glasses is too much to handle for the app, turning our tester’s spectacles into a gnarly tribal tattoo.

Important to note before you try it for yourself: it also “does not work well with beards,” according to the app’s documentation, and won’t work if you “include dolls in your photo.”