The original artist, David Montiel Franco, can be found on Twitter at Tablos.AF. He's a talented guy.
I'm pretty sure that my first exposure to "AF" was in 1999. Of course, someone, somewhere read that someone, somewhere was related to Toriyama and they confirmed that it was real. You know how kids are.
Then, Toyble totally ripped off Franco's AF name and Super Saiyan 5 design... But, you know how kids are lol
Lots and lots of fun memories that will never, ever happen again. This wave caught the internet in the perfect time for this--the internet was a thing and got this rumor out to the fans, and yet, it was so primitive that there was still so much mystique over anything that happened in Japan. There was no real way to confirm anything.
I knew that AF was fake because of all the poorly Photoshopped pictures that surfaced. I thought that the "Super Saiyan 5 Goku" design was drawn by Toriyama.
It kind of sucks that the word "hoax" is so synonymous with AF and the Super Saiyan 5 design, as if it was on purpose. No. It was a kid submitting fan-art to a magazine, which was taken by others and turned into a whole thing.