I see that there are more and more people watching me and interacting with my uploads on DA, but I'm also very active here as an audience so I thought I would give a little introduction, and why I do what I do.
I'm mostly uploading AI art to DA, as it's not allowed here. I know this is highly controversial, but to me it's a very easy way of expressing my ideas.
Unfortunately, drawing has always been very difficult to me, despite giving it a try several times. AI image generation feels like the barrier between my ideas and reality is finally able to break down.
I know that people like me should support real artists by paid commissions, which I have also done several times (like the only upload I currently have here), and I fully agree with that. But using AI is very different from that, it allows a more personal way of expressing my ideas visually, because it has no inherent style unlike a human artist. So the expression is more direct in a way. And also, some of my weirder ideas would be really awkward to explain to a human artist.
I still wish I had the ability to create drawings myself, but after so many failures, I kind of accepted that I will never be able to do that, and I absolutely admire those who have this talent. There are so many people that I love here, this community is where I feel at home.
As some of my closer friends know, for the past five years I've been studying to become an airline pilot, and after finishing all the exams and tests I'm in the process now of securing my first airline job, which is more difficult than I thought. This has been eating up most of my mental energy, so doing something that requires a lot of concentration like drawing didn't feel a possibility. I know that this is a hobby and a relaxing thing to many people, but to me, it seems like an impossibility after a day of being yelled at by an aggressive instructor, and finally arriving home with a headache. On my free days, I preferred walking in the city or nature, just to take my mind off the challenges which seemed impossible at the time. There were moments when I considered giving up, but I kept going anyway. After all, it paid off, but at the cost of feeling burnt out and losing any mental energy I had before.
I really enjoyed editing videos for YouTube before I started flying, but I completely lost inspiration and motivation to do that as well.
Sometimes I question if I made the right decision, and I always feel that the answer is yes. I wanted to be a pilot since I was about 8 years old, and I would never apologise myself if I didn't at least try. And I'm actually happy I did, even if I never get a pilot job, I will live the rest of my life knowing that I tried, which is much more pleasant that not even having tried, and wondering about the what ifs.