ok, mini rant, probably not mini, topic, artist discretion and ai art.

First off, I FUCKING LOVE artist's discretion XD so I have a new sona that I'm playing with and I'm calling him Rhal, Rhal'gotha for long, Rhal for short. I'll post some examples of him at some point. But... I started getting some other art drawn of him before even getting his ref sheet sorted out and thank gawd I did. One of the artists ran with what I said 'yeah, I... haven't finalized him, so have fun with the locs' to which she did the usual way by pulling from Muzu's ref sheet. But, also asked 'I have some other idea for the locs if you wanna see?' or words to that effect.

I accepted and thank gawd that I did.

The two alternative designs... awesome as fuck but one was just really amazing, captured Rhal's energy, his wildness, but also carefree personality and just, it's Rhal, it fits him and who I want him to be in the DnD campaign (oh... yeah that's why I'm getting art of him, he's my DnD character now... also a pirate!) thank you Delver's furry DnD or whatever. But that kind of spins off into my ai art rant.

I LOVE ai art... but I kind of also hate it. I like seeing art that is just churned out in mass, and looks cool, etc. etc. etc. what is there to hate?

YOU CAN'T COMMISSION AN AI ARTIST D: Like, this started when I saw a picture randomly, didn't know it was ai at the time so I started skimming around looking for a signature, some hint as to who made it (translation: I wanted a commission from this person) didn't find anything, so, i clicked the 'X' link and... ai artist... and that just fucking sucked. I have no idea what the ai is trained off of, don't really recognize the art style (it's not really bara, not really generic swole american style, it's... I just like it?) so i can't figure it out that way? It's just a cool piece, that exists, that was trained off of 'someone' but I don't know who that someone is so I can't go and commission them.

I can't even joke that this is 'exposure' or something because I don't know who is being exposed thanks to this ai thing. Which is what irks me about it. There are a ton of really cool ai generated pictures, and you KNOW there is some furry artist out there that is the template for his generation (at least I think there has to be...). If an ai would generate ai art, but at the end of it also say 'this piece was generated by using a combination of artists A, Q, W, and H ... I'd appreciate that? Then I would comb through those four, see who was clearly the core influence, and follow or commission that guy/gal/non gender specific designation for... a... person? But to the best of my knowledge that doesn't exist yet.

But I think that's my connection about the first part. With an artist you commission them, and maybe again, and again, and over time you build some sort of relationship, professional, maybe something more. But they know your likes, dislikes, things that you find appealing to your characters and how they express themselves. They can come up with specific designs unique to that picture/character and can do so easily (like changing Rhal's dreadlock style so it's not a carbon clone of your main sona...) and it breathes a whole life into them that wouldn't have been there before. They come up with a FUCKING OBVIOUS WAY to handle a pendant for the character that for SOME reason you just DIDN'T FUCKING THINK OF even though it's RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU D: ... THAT is something you get with a living breathing artist. With an ai, yeah, you get rapid generated pieces, that yeah, will look amazing (or amazingly horrible as your arm is now merged with your thigh and... it is grotesque as fuck) but ... that's it. You can't commission this artist and... you're stuck. A cool piece, you get to look at, and wonder who the fuck is the artist that the ai Borg hive mind and taken its individualistic qualities from and spat something out and you can't commission this person because for all you know there are so many voices in this picture that maybe NONE of those artists have that specific style anymore...

Long story short, living breathing artists are cool as fuck and make amazing art that make your characters awesome and you look forward to getting a ref sheet with this bomb ass hairstyle. Ai art is cool so long as you don't want anything from it? But the second you do fuck you because you can't tell who the artist is... unless the ai did some really weird freaky bastardization of the signature and you and kind of figure it out from the brush strokes... ... this picture doesn't even have that :c

I want to commission this phantom and I am still bitchy about it that I can't.