#And unless you're completely paralyzed you can make fucking art too

[moongothic]

I wish AI image creators (and pro-AI image people in general) understood was that there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between artists referencing each others work and a computer (re)generating an image

And that’s respecting the time and dedication that went into creating the piece being referenced to begin with

If an artist uses someone else’s work as inspiration for their own, they have to recreate it from scratch. You can use the composition of a piece, but you still have to draw the whole thing all over again. You can color pick a palette but the shading you have to do on your own. You can study the way someone draws immaculate, fine details, but you still draw every single line with your own hand. And doing all that work makes the person look at what the original artist had done, understand how they made their art, what it took to make it, and learn to respect their effort and dedication even more.

Hell, even if someone traces over another person’s work, without consent and refuses to admit to it (which generally speaking is a dick fucking move), even then the tracer will deep down know the limit of their skills and see what the original artist can do but they can’t (yet).

And these are all things that neither a computer or the person feeding a prompt into the computer will ever do.

AI image creators will never put in the same work and effort to “create” something, and thus they will never understand what it takes for an artist to draw or paint something from scratch.

You told a machine to make a dish, the machine makes a dish based on approximations of what goes into it based on what chefs put into their dishes, and you claim to be the chef that cooked it.

AI images and their creators are inherently disrespectful.

[certifiedwerewolf]

Having recently gotten into hobby painting, something I've always wanted to do but didn't for a variety of reasons, here are some things I wish someone had said to me, just in case someone else is where I was for a long time and needs someone to say it to them:

It's fine if you only do it for a hobby. You don't have to monetize your work, you don't have to sell it or do commission work or enter contests or anything like that. You can just do it because it feels good and if you do mediocre paintings forever that's fine because the point of a hobby is to make you happy.

It's fine if you paint the same things over and over.

It's fine if you paint cartoon characters instead of scenery or portraits. (This was always a tricky one with me. I have a cartoony art style and the idea of learning to paint in a more realistic style was paralyzing for a long time.)

Buy the cheap shit. Seriously! One of the big factors that stalled me for so long was that I didn't want to mess up and ruin my materials or canvas and waste the money I'd spent on it. But over a few months I've spent collectively about thirty dollars on paints, brushes, canvases, pallets, and fancy graphite pencils in abundance because I bought the cheap shit instead of shelling out loads of money on the "good stuff". My brain is a layman's brain; it doesn't know the difference, all it knows is "paint stuff", and if I waste a canvas, I can get a six pack for like four dollars. If I ruin a brush, I can get a huge pack of assorted sizes for seven. It's okay.

It's okay if you mess up! See above, but also like. It's fine. It's fine. I pinky promise it's fine. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's fine.

No seriously you are under no obligation to perfection. I'm reiterating this because the fear of not being perfect the first time has stalled me from so many things all of my life and part of that is undiagnosed and mismanaged adhd and part of that is expectations placed on me from being "gifted" and it's shit but it's fine if you aren't perfect and it's fine if you do shit and it's fine if all you ever are is mediocre. It doesn't matter.

If you find joy in the creation, then the work has done its job. That's the point of doing something as a hobby. Just enjoy yourself. Experiment to your heart's content and find the things that bring you joy, whether that's painting the same cartoon character over and over or trying out every kind of art style that has ever existed. Do what you want. Who cares?

You don't have to display your work either. Or give it away. Or do anything with it. You can even throw it out once it's done, if that's your notion.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MONETIZE YOUR HOBBY. Reiterating that one too because "if I get good enough I can sell my work" has always been the quickest way to suck the fun out of anything I wanted to do. Don't tell yourself that and don't let anyone else tell you that either. Unless that's what you want, but that's more for if you're trying to become a professional and that's a different set of advice that I can't give you because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, I've got like two complete and two incomplete pieces under my belt. The only art class I've ever taken was in fourth grade and I don't remember shit fuck from it except that for some reason you aren't supposed to just draw a bunch of cubes in the margins of your notebook and call it drawing. Even if it's super satisfying.

So, to sum up: Do what you want, it literally doesn't matter, don't worry about monetization and buy cheap shit because your layman's brain won't know the difference. Have fun. Also draw cubes.

Anyway here's a painting of my chickensona that I did a few weeks ago please enjoy