FA+
Shop
Just 'cause I'm quiet don't mean I've got nothin' to say.
5 months ago
Hello fellow FA artists, writers, poets, dreamers, crafters, fursuiters and other highly creative people.
During the last FA "Blackout," I had to switch over to that "Deviant" site in order to keep track of some of my friends and artists here on FA. Now it's a whole different "Ball Game" over there at that site, as it has a lot more variety of subjects to look at, and quite a lot of technical art. Their algorithm also quickly pegged me as a "Furry," (Note, NOT a "Furry Artist.") So, my daily "New Art" feed is full of lovely images, and some by artists here on FA that show surprising skills in image manipulation using AI.
Yes. you read that right. AI. The majority of images I get in my DA feed are of AI origins, and extremely well crafted, although the "Robots" still have problems of adding legs or weird looking fingers to character's hands. They even have a program called "Dream Up" which can be used to create AI images that are generated by the users that enter their text descriptions of what they want to see and modify, using the millions of images in the system to choose from.
I have yet to use it though. I still feel dedicated to creating my art and images "The Old-Fashioned Way" even though it might be considered "Quaint" and "Antiquated" in this day and age. A fellow FA artist friend gave the "Dream Up" program a try, and he was frustrated with the first results as the program interpreted his personal character into a human and a rather unattractive one at that. Another friend on Facebook has become something of a "Wiz" using AI for the images he uses on his "Fantasy-Gumshoe Detective-Noir" stories he writes. I must say he's captured the look and feeling of those 1940s era "Potboilers" in creating cover art for his lengthy tomes. (I was particularly impressed with his attempt at creating a rather scary looking automobile that reflected the design and styling of the time. I was even inspired to try and think out building the car as a 1:24th scale model.)
Will I try it? I'm not really sure. As it stands now, I find the "Old Fashioned Way" of using my sketchpad, pencils and pens a bit quicker, but I still harbor the desire to create "Photographic" like images of my characters "Art," (The Artist.) "Muse," (His shape-shifting source of inspiration.) "Notion," (Muse's Daughter.) and "Legend," the shape-shifting son of Artist and Muse. I'd would just like to hang their portraits on the walls of my room to serve as "Inspiration," and also because they are the closest thing I have to "Family."
"Peace."
During the last FA "Blackout," I had to switch over to that "Deviant" site in order to keep track of some of my friends and artists here on FA. Now it's a whole different "Ball Game" over there at that site, as it has a lot more variety of subjects to look at, and quite a lot of technical art. Their algorithm also quickly pegged me as a "Furry," (Note, NOT a "Furry Artist.") So, my daily "New Art" feed is full of lovely images, and some by artists here on FA that show surprising skills in image manipulation using AI.
Yes. you read that right. AI. The majority of images I get in my DA feed are of AI origins, and extremely well crafted, although the "Robots" still have problems of adding legs or weird looking fingers to character's hands. They even have a program called "Dream Up" which can be used to create AI images that are generated by the users that enter their text descriptions of what they want to see and modify, using the millions of images in the system to choose from.
I have yet to use it though. I still feel dedicated to creating my art and images "The Old-Fashioned Way" even though it might be considered "Quaint" and "Antiquated" in this day and age. A fellow FA artist friend gave the "Dream Up" program a try, and he was frustrated with the first results as the program interpreted his personal character into a human and a rather unattractive one at that. Another friend on Facebook has become something of a "Wiz" using AI for the images he uses on his "Fantasy-Gumshoe Detective-Noir" stories he writes. I must say he's captured the look and feeling of those 1940s era "Potboilers" in creating cover art for his lengthy tomes. (I was particularly impressed with his attempt at creating a rather scary looking automobile that reflected the design and styling of the time. I was even inspired to try and think out building the car as a 1:24th scale model.)
Will I try it? I'm not really sure. As it stands now, I find the "Old Fashioned Way" of using my sketchpad, pencils and pens a bit quicker, but I still harbor the desire to create "Photographic" like images of my characters "Art," (The Artist.) "Muse," (His shape-shifting source of inspiration.) "Notion," (Muse's Daughter.) and "Legend," the shape-shifting son of Artist and Muse. I'd would just like to hang their portraits on the walls of my room to serve as "Inspiration," and also because they are the closest thing I have to "Family."
"Peace."
I want an action picture of a space ship corridor with a female engineer taking fire from an unseen enemy.
BOOM
Okay, that wasn't what I had in mind... huh, a window in the corridor wall with a space battle outside? I hadn't considered that. It adds tension and multiple events. Hmm, I like that. I won't be copying this art, but it has inspired me for other options.
AI might add extra heads, ears, and 65 noodly fingers, but damn is it good at lighting. It knows color values of light and reflected light the sources, bounced light, shadows- I learn by seeing how it works with warm and cool light values.
It is not a production tool yet, but it sure can be useful when you are just playing with ideas.
Vix
It's also just fun to mess around with in a casual way.
AI image gen is obnoxious right now because idiots, both in the general pop and in c-suite positions, are trying to apply it to EVERYTHING and showing us a thousand things it ISN'T good at. When I encounter one of those 90% AI youtube videos I just move on. But I don't care what it's isn't good at, just what it IS, where I can use it. So far, just like text-gen, you can only use so much before it ruins whatever you're doing, so it works well as a resource, but it's nowhere near replacement yet.
On the other hand, that's MY taste. The general population made every single Disney live-action remake (aside from Snow White) a massive commercial success, so they may be perfectly happy with brain-dead slop. Only time will tell.
It's for fun to work the ChatGPT A.I. to the bone in coming up with expressive characters and elaborate backgrounds by way of photo references and simple descriptive words. Staging the image is a challenge.
Not exactly perfect or receptive a lot of times but it will turn out okay "tame" art on a good day.
I call that A.l. stuff "depictions" than illustrated art. I am not interested in using A.I. to create emotionless mannikins standing around posing without a gag punchline.
AI art, however, feels like each drawing is made by a different artist who has no clue what the previous artist has done. No matter how I word my request, there will always be flaws and errors in the art.
Still, I grew up drawing cartoons and art such as you find in Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal). Hell... I even admire Picaso... mostly. So that's my jam and I'm too damn old to spend years trying to be as good with a computer program as I am with what I do now. And there is no computer ever that can replace Stan Lee. IMHO. And so I shall remain as I am until I am no more. I don't mind learning new stuff... you should see my computer I use for music making. But there's something about drawing freehand that I cannot get from working Photoshop.