#As a real artist (someone who puts actually effort into art) I have a personal hatred towards ai “artists”

[callmesunny04]

I honestly can not fucking BELIEVE that Tumblr HAD THE GUTS to show me ai "art" on the For You tab. How dare they suggest that I would enjoy ai "art". I am truly disgusted.

[majorbaby]

it takes a conscious effort to break your patterns of consumption and unlearn the notion beauty, interiority, diverse ways of existence aren't exclusive to whiteness or maleness. part of that isn't your fault. certain music is played on the radio, certain shows survive cancellation no matter what, certain people seem to be able to commit the worst possible acts against other human beings and are excused on account of their creative genius. others are selectively punished, with good reason sure, but still, selectively.

now more than ever it's easier to immerse yourself in art made by people outside of the mainstream. reading lists, free resources, playlists... all this stuff is more accessible than ever, but you've got to make an effort to give it a try. it's black history month, the recs are pouring in, go have a look. or take a chance on something absolutely no one has recommended anywhere and if you find something you like, rec it to someone else because the likelihood is they haven't heard of it.

tracy chapman's "fast car" is one of eleven songs that appears on her self-titled debut album. can you name the second hit single from it? if you're american and you fell anywhere left of center as of the 2016 election, it should be on the tip of your tongue if you were engaged in your country's politics at the time, regardless of your level of actual investment in the system. if not, the next time you're doing a task you need both hands with, washing the dishes, having dinner, doing your makeup, put that album on.

there's a post with over 100K notes on here that i see all the time of bruce springsteen and clarence clemons kissing. there's a part of that that is immediately meaningful to many if you're lgbtq, and a part that is harder for non-black lgbtq people to feel the weight of. but it is worth trying to do and was part of the reason why they kissed so often in the first place. clarence clemons was from norfolk, virginia. he released multiple albums outside of his work with the e street band. they may not be for you, but give them a try.

give enough music, or movies, or books that aren't a part of the approved canon a try, and there's no way you won't find something you don't feel as passionate about as you do about springsteen, siken, the beatles, what have you.

james baldwin was a prolific artist. see if you can't find something of his you like more than giovanni's room.

immerse yourself in ringo sheena, who mitski cites as one of her influences.

if you have difficulty paying attention to music you don't recognize, (i get it) make a playlist that alternates tracks you know and love with brand new tracks. start small. 5 faves of all time, 5 you're going to try out. you won't like everything, but you might find yourself looking forward to 6 songs instead of 5 eventually.

for movies, pick an actor whose performance you loved in something and explore their work. last year i picked whoopi goldberg, also a prolific artist, with a vast body of work that's pretty accessible as a result of her constant, intentional effort.

if you're an artist yourself, you can only stand to improve by getting to know your fellow artists better. so expand your notion of what art is. you can do it for free in lots of cases, and you're spending that time listening to music or reading or watching movies or series anyway, what have you got to lose?

anti-racism sometimes means engaging in real-world narratives of pain endured by brown and black people. that pain permeates much of our art, but we're just as three-dimensional as everybody else, and every aspect of our experiences come through in our work. you know that already, because what else is happening when you indulge in various genres. for everything you love or enjoy, there's a brown or black person who's doing something along those lines, in many cases, those genres wouldn't exist in their current form without the influence of our communities, some more than others, depending on where you're from. you can actually keep one foot inside your comfort zone and dip your toe into something else. that choice is both a joy and a luxury.

[theswordwizard]

ai art: both sides

I think a lot of non-artists are also just really and truly not understanding the big picture. I personally could not care less about that cat image, it was fun, whatever, but you are only producing those kinds of images in the sense that an art director "produces" whatever art they are in charge of. They are telling another artist what to do, even guiding them, but they are not considered the artist themselves. Artists who are creating their own art, who are trying to survive off of their work (many of whom have some form of disability, as art is easy to do while sitting down, etc), who are already in the middle of fighting to not just be tossed aside for a product which doesn't even produce the results it claims, are reacting negatively because they are seeing that in parallel with tabling spaces taken up with people presenting generated art as their own illustration, and game devs/producers using it as a way to explicitly avoid paying people for work, while using something that was trained on their work.

"Why do people react so strongly to things possibly being AI art?" If you want to keep it out of the courts, then public opinion matters all the more. It's about a party line that is easily communicable. Most artists are going to be strongly anti-AI because that's the best way to protect themselves than trying to "open a discussion" about it. It's like nurse scabs. We can argue back and forth all day about the intricacies of scabbing for important jobs, but at the end of the day the party line will generally be "scabbing is bad," "we don't like scabs," "scabbing harms workers."

People are trying to compare people getting mad about it to people getting mad about Duchamp's fountain, which just lets me know about their level of art education, and the level of which they like to talk out their ass.

Duchamp's fountain isn't a major point in art history because of the object itself, its because of the STATEMENT. It is because of the placement of the object IN THE GALLERY. It is the equivalent of a political pamphlet, but summed up in a single object that incites discussion around his political statement. It isn't about the object it is about the CONCEPT. We can literally call anything we want "art" if we dedicate ourselves to reframing it and treating it as such, it's just that most non-artists don't even care. They want the label of being an artist without even putting in an effort to. It's like if I wanted to be called a photographer and I wanted people to treat me as such, and so I just made a portfolio of pictures I took off of Pinterest or even a stock photo site, because I've decided that it's the photos I would WANT to take, and thus I can just act like they have anything to do with me.

There have been arguments over much more "similar" things for a long time too. Since the 90s Richard Prince has been taking people's instagram photos, making slight tweaks to avoid copyright, and then printing them large scale and selling them for tens of thousands of dollars. Technically legal, kinda shitty, as he does it without even contacting the (plenty of times, women) original posters. And that's just with selfies people have taken! But I don't see people mentioning that because a lot of people don't like him, and most people arguing to legitimize AI art to be uncontested don't actually care that much about contemporary art. They have zero real interest in being an artist and talking about art to that degree, to have those discussions in a way that isn't validating themselves. Duchamp's fountain in a gallery incites discussion because galleries are places of art discussion. If someone brought a crate of mechanically woven baskets (that they bought from amazon) to a craft fair, people are going to be rightly pissed off. It's about context.

It's also, in my opinion, a similar discussion to the one that was big on twitter not too long ago, where people argued that artists weren't obligated to be able to draw non-white and/or disabled people. Which, sure, but you probably aren't that good of an artist if you don't know how to. And someone going through a portfolio of exclusively white people might go "huh, only white people. interesting." (I even want to include a gotcha here! If an artist has a portfolio of white people, and they have a section talking about their focus being painting their family tree in like, northern Ireland, it's gonna be a totally different story. why, you ask? because there is an underlying concept other than "wow this artist really only likes white people." this is part of the reading comprehension test that will follow.)

And you know what, I'm going to be honest - and this is likely a result of me not being a photographer - but I'm not even really talking all that much about AI photo edits, outside of the large scale implications of what it means that anyone can create a highly realistic image of anything they want (including political figures, female celebrities, you see my pattern here) with zero effort, on a mass scale we've never seen previously. I think they should only be used with stock, and I even think that photographers who upload their works should get additional payments from it. I actually had used a generator back in 2019 for a project, well before this even became a discussion, and it was even featured in a gallery show for a bit! The overall theme was "fake news," so it was a conceptual piece with fake landscape photography that I made with some beta tool. The point was the tool in combination with the tool's result, not how pretty the fake pictures were. I also want to say it was trained a lot more ethically than a lot of the generators that are so popular today.

And this isn't to say that you have to have a gallery or be so fully integrated in a physical art scene or whatever to be able to make conceptual art or talk about it - honestly I think zines that could actually combine whatever your concept is with having room to talk about it, and they're easy to create both physically and digitally and share. maybe just don't have it be around "look at all these pretty pictures that I made with AI." similar to how people at the art book fair aren't going to be impressed with me being like "look at all these pretty pictures I found on Unsplash."

Sure, AI art is "real art," but it's not illustration or photography or whatever, it's conceptual art. Which means it's main goal is to incite thought and discussion about it. Like the D&D book's release that suddenly turned to being about the AI art they used. So if you want to be an artist using primarily AI, go ahead, no one can stop you, but the topic is culturally significant with the current fight between the entertainment unions to protect their livelihoods, so the discussion will be heated.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

'You're reading too much into ATSV.'

[aka meta analysis is good for the soul]

I often get told on this blog that I'm reading too much into plots or scenes or things in general.

And honestly, fair point. I do the most.

And as a writer, I will say that I do it out of pure respect.

[actual photo of me reading the script and going for my 'reading too hard at ATSV notebook']

Movies take years to write.

People spend months of their lives genuinely toiling over these characters, often times creating more work than what can ever be reasonably used. Months of revisions and scraping work.

For weeks, about a dozen people probably went to sleep dreaming or thinking up what Hobie would wear, what Gwen would say, what emotional cues Jess will have.

A lot of people dedicated years of their lives and creative labor into that story.

To me, it isn't at all bizarre to take an hour out of my day to sit and consider the story they spend a lot of time trying to tell.

Compared to the labor they have given me, multiple 40+ hour work weeks for years - an hour or two is literally nothing lol

It's literally the least I can do.

As a writer, I feel like its only right to sit back and look deeper into a story.

To analyze the writer's intentions, or examine their storytelling tactics and abilities.

We are taught to consume media so quickly and rapidly that to offer time to critically analyze a piece of work is considered bizarre, too much work, or pointless.

As if there's nothing to read into. Or as if speculation and meta analysis is helpful to no one.

If someone spends five hours drawing fanart that is accepted. If someone spends two hours writing fanfic, this is expectable behavior.

But I spend the same amount of time to look deeper into the work of the writers, and often times I'm met with surprise or treated as if I'm overly uptight.

It's like snickering at a person who asked there was deeper meaning behind a painting. While standing in an art gallery.

When streaming shows drop all in one day, it becomes about the Easter eggs and watching it as fast as possible as not to be spoiled.

Then at the end of it, you wash your hands of it and wait for the next big release.

People spend years, decades of their writing career trying to write realistic characters with layered motives. Or stories with complex themes.

Comic Book and Screenwriters included.

I myself try very very hard to do so - to provide foreshadowing, and emotional insight into the characters, their motives, their faults.

If I heard someone say that the piece is not worth looking that far into, all the work I've done as a writer gets overlooked.

Writers cannot grow if people are consuming their media without caring enough to look critically at it as the work of a storyteller.

So yes, I'm looking too far into it. Cause writers can write that far into it. And that deserves to be examined, acknowledged, and praised.

To assume less is too assume lesser of the writers who put everything into the media you enjoy.

This year of all years, we should be appreciating the work Screenwriters put in.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - I'm not being an asshole (well, not trying to be).

I'm looking at writers as vital parts of a movies production. Because they are.

We look deeply at the art style, or the animation, or the music. Writers are not shadow figures. They're people with careers. And them and their work deserve to be spoken about and acknowledged as a work of effort just the same as CGI artists or editors, or directors.

I implore you - Read more into it.

If you're a writer yourself, doubly so.

Read FAR into it. Build your analyzation skills, come to your own conclusions. Break the story down every which way and look at the characters from every angle.

It's fun, it's free, it makes the characters so much more real.

So many people on this website hope to one day become published writers. One thing they do to help you achieve that in college, is by racing things like scripts, and looking critically.

Meta analysis is good for you as much as it is the writers.

If you don't think you're cut out for it, or would have nothing to add, still try. Not for the brownie points, but to feel closer to the characters and the story.

If you've seen ATSV (or any Fandom media) and haven't ever really sat and thought about it - everyone's moral stances, why they want what they want, why they've made the mistakes they've had, where you stand on it all - I highly recommend it.

You might come away with some surprising conclusions about characters or even yourself.

Think about your favorite characters, and what might happen to them in the next movie.

There's really nothing wrong with reading that far into it.

Fifteen minutes of thinking, or an hour of writing is nothing compared to the months of work that went into this absolute masterpiece.

Trust me, the first time you catch some shit that makes you go

ITS LIKE A HIGH I TELL YOU.

Touch grass? Nah bro, touch your local library card. Go there right now. Take out this book.

There's gonna be a discussion tomorrow in class.

If you read this far heyhello I think you're rad as hell.

Here's a Hobie for the road because he's a great companion.

Bye.

[neolxzr]

i think more people should consider the potential of rinne and shu as like. kind of friends

like i think the idea of shu being genuinely surprised by rinne's real personality over the front he puts up is SO GOOD like imagine he gave shu an actual genuine compliment on something he's working on. like he'd say some shit like of course its phenomenal i, shu itsuki made it etc. but he'd be so taken back. or better yet rinne says something nice about MIKA's art. mika makes cool weird shit i think rinne would love it and also he'd gain a couple points in shu's head cause shu thinks mika is the next van gogh

rinne is part of craftmonster and probably would have some interesting things to say about art and the act of creation and shu could probably even learn some things from him about the creative process and not focusing so hard on an end product and just enjoying creating. like theyd still banter a lot but they might actually squeeze a genuine conversation about art in there

also just thinking about some unseen moment after artistic partisan valkaloid collab rinne telling both valkyries thank you for looking after hiiro and being kind to him and theyre like wow. hes actually a pretty good guy. and then he goes back to being annoying as usual

they also have such interesting parallels in the sense that they both feel incredibly indebted to the person who saved them (mika/niki). like if you think about it for a second theyre REALLY similar in that regard. they both have someone they consider to be their light in the dark and even their reason for doing a lot of what they do and i think they should bond over it. i dont know how this hypothetical heart to heart would come about but like what if it did. you know

like i think theyre the kind of friends that no one really understands why they are friends and they dont really either. but theyre standing around talking in the cospro office for the 3rd time this week and shu is outwardly annoyed but is making no effort to leave and everyone just accepts it

[hippolotamus]

So this is 39...

I was gonna do one of those X amount of things I've learned by age whatever, but 39 is a lot of things and tbh I'm not sure if I’ve learned that many (as some of you would undoubtedly agree). So, in true Hippo fashion, please accept this list of random assorted things I've picked up like shiny trinkets/facts I've come to accept through the years.

Believe it or not you're worth the effort, love and care you try to give everyone else but don't think you deserve.

Usually the more I've tried to fit in and be like everyone else, the more unhappy I've been. Let your freak flag fly and see who sticks around in your blanket fort.

Legos, coloring, stuffies, swing sets, daydreaming and other ‘childish pursuits’ are not, in fact, just for kids.

when given the opportunity, a solo car concert is a solid choice

If you're constantly putting yourself in boxes for the benefit of someone else... honestly, what's the point?

Find at least one person you can drop the mask with and be fully, authentically you.

Groups break up, accidents and weather happen... just go to the concert/show/exhibit if you wanna instead of waiting for ‘next time’.

nobody has their shit figured out (especially anyone acting like they do). we are literally all out here just wingin' it.

Some of the best life advice comes from fictional characters

Nobody cares. Nobody is thinking about you the way you're thinking about you. - Alexis Rose

Life isn't meant to be lived in moderation. We only get one chance at this... What's the point of living if you're just going to keep yourself locked away from ever experiencing life? - Avi Mulvaney

Make sure you’re following your heart - Carla Price

You’re gonna be okay, kid - Christopher Diaz

just because you didn’t die, doesn’t mean you’re actually living

even if you think you’re ‘too young’ for something, i assure you you’re not

i love you isn't reserved for family and/or romantic partners.

Platonic soulmates are a thing and they do exist

Dates with yourself are 100% necessary and sometimes the best ones

there is zero deadline or requirement to find a romantic partner, get married, have kids, buy a house, etc...

Sexual and Romantic preferences are fluid. It's OK if you change your mind or didn't 'figure it out' until your 20s, 30s, 40s or beyond.

You're complete as you are. Without the degree, the partner, the [current arbitrary standard]

Cliche as hell but life doesn’t end because you didn’t get the job/house/partner. Odds are good it’s the best thing that could have happened and you’ll be delighted it did.

Blood may be thicker than water but Found Family, the Family We Choose, is often the best family

Shared genetics doesn't demand your unwavering loyalty

I'm human and I fuck up. I make the wrong choice, say the wrong thing, don’t say anything or say too much. Way more than I want to, and often in the name of trying to keep the peace.

Do you write, paint, draw, some other variety of art? Congratulations 🥳 you’re an author/artist. A real one. Yes, you!

As such (and I will die on this hill) you don’t owe anything to anyone. Not the fic, the next chapter, the snippet, the gif set, etc. Your works are not the price of membership to fandom.

Missing someone and being glad they’re not in your life anymore aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.

You’re more than enough, but not too much. Never too much. I promise.

headpats & forehead kisses 💞🦛

[hkkingofshades]

Tumblr's new policy, and updates going forward

Yeah, I bet we all saw this coming, huh.

So, given tungl dot hell(tm)'s new deal with midjourney, I think pretty much all artists on tumblr are, well, not having a great time. Like deviantart, tumblr has provided a way to opt out from having your blog content scraped, but like deviantart, it's a little unclear what has already been shared before the opt-out went into place, and how much they'll actually work to stop machine trawlers from trawling opted-out blogs.

I'll put the tl;dr up front:

King of Shades will not be leaving Tumblr, but due to the new policy, I won't be posting full pages here anymore.

There's no point in taking down all the pages I've already posted. Deleting them from my page won't delete subsequent reblogs, and there's a pretty high chance that tumblr has already scraped them. (haveibeentrained.com seems to think I haven't been yet, at least. I don't think I really have a big enough following for that to happen, although I don't want to jinx it...) But I certainly won't be posting the full-size pages here anymore.

Instead, I think I'll go the Trying Human route and post a little preview of the update (possibly heavily watermarked; my computer can't run glaze/nightshade, unfortunately), so you guys will still get notifications, but you'll have to visit the ComicFury main website in order to read it. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience (although I will say that I think it's a much better reading experience over there)!

Speaking of which:

I have never and will never ask for any kind of compensation (other than your wonderful feedback, which I've just been absolutely blown away by) for doing this. Even putting legality aside, that's not why I'm here! However, if you've enjoyed this comic, ever thought that you might be willing to tip me on ko-fi if I had one, or even just want to continue having an internet that isn't entirely a corporate wasteland, I ask that you consider donating to ComicFury instead.

ComicFury is a relic of the old, good internet: it's been around for at least 15 years, and it's all hosted and managed by one guy (Kyo). Aside from his team of volunteer moderators, everything on this website is done by one person with a passion for supporting artists. I've chatted with him a little, and he's a great dude! Most of his operating costs are paid for out of pocket, and the site is currently hurting a little bit because it doesn't run ads, it doesn't have subscriptions or paywalled content, it doesn't have any corporate interference or monetization of any kind outside of his Patreon. And—perhaps most relevantly for this post:

I will cut right to the chase, we have decided not to allow AI-art based webcomics on the site. [...] As for our reasoning, there are obviously ethical concerns regarding the source images of most commonly used AI image generators (namely them just being scraped off the internet without anyones permission). But even beyond that, another concern is that due to the extremely low effort involved, webcomics of this nature could just over time completely drown out in numbers art by passionate people who put a lot of time into it , which would be a real shame. So we asked ourselves what would be better for the community, and we agreed that banning it would probably be the better thing overall.

—Kyo has been quite firm that he will not allow AI art to be posted to or scraped from any ComicFury domain. While this isn't a protection against huge web trawls or people putting someone's art in individually—there's not a lot anyone can do about that yet, even with tools like glaze and nightshade—it's a little peace of mind that the art posted there won't abruptly be sold en masse to the highest bidder.

The Patreon starts at $2/month, and Kyo has said that he doesn't mind people pledging for a short time and then dipping if they can't afford an ongoing subscription. If and only if this is something you can afford, and you want to continue seeing independent webcomics including King of Shades, please consider donating!

The Patreon is here. There's not much in the way of reward tiers, especially if you're not a member, but I posit that the real reward is being able to read free webcomics done by real humans as labors of love, without being advertised to or sold as the product. And also maybe the friends we made along the way. Or something.

Once again, there is no pressure, and no shame if you're not willing or able to give money. But if you've ever thought you might be willing to tip me for what I do, consider passing it along to the guy who makes it possible instead.

Thank you for your time!

P.S. Page 64 is coming, I promise! Recent developments kind of kneecapped my motivation for making online art 🙃

[slithergaunt]

Gimme your hands

I’ve made this tweet, or some version of it, at least half a dozen times during conversation with others. If you aren’t familiar with the actual scene itself in a while, or haven’t seen Jaws (ARE YOU FUCKIN KIDDING ME? GO WATCH JAWS) you can find it on youtube as I did as the “gimme your hands” scene.

For those without time, Quint (played masterfully by Robert Shaw) is FINALLY being hired to go out and kill the shark that the mayor and town have been reluctant to actually acknowledge until now. However Hooper (played also wonderfully by Richard Dreyfuss) is a marine biologist or something and wants to come along too, and bring his fancy equipment.

Quint demands to feel Hooper’s hands, and the audience already knows Hooper not going to enjoy this. While squeezing squeezing the fuck out of Hooper’s hands to wound his masculinity, Quint claims Hooper’s fancy 2,000 nets and gadgets will be worth nothing against the shark they face. Then claiming his wealthy idle upbringing make him too weak to participate, leading to “You’ve got ‘city hands’ Mr. Hooper. Been countin’ money all your life..”

This is like mid-argument in the conversation, but the moment tells you EXACTLY the type of person Quint believes he is. Working man, man’s man, had to sweat and bleed in the mud for every dollar he’s made in his life. And Hooper is the soft little wimpy man from the city, the city man, bestowed with wealth, never done “an honest day’s work” in his life, weak and idle with all his fancy toys.

In the past century, we artists have been softer people. We’ve always been considered, and often felt, weaker in our trade. Not a “real job” kind of thing. Layabouts who don’t go out and actually “work”. For over the past century, we’ve been Hooper in this scene getting our hands crushed. I know I have.

But then, these techbros came along, with their AI generated art. I almost refuse to call it AI art, because that’s not what it is. It’s Mass Non-Consensual Online Image Combination Generated Media. MNCOICGM, rolls right off the tongue doesn’t it. But let’s humor them. Here they come with their new toys, their new gadgets, that allow them to do art purely by typing on a keyboard.

I’m not even gonna post examples of what they spurt out. The equivalent of using the Doordash app to order from 20 different restaurants, having a robotic arm put the contents into a blender for you, baking it, and declaring yourself a chef. And I know what you’re thinking, techbro “there’s SO MUCH MORE to the process than that!” and you’re correct! That IS a gross over-simplification of how much work is done FOR YOU while all you did was type.... a prompt

So now suddenly artists all over the world, even kindergartners with crayons have put in more work and effort than them. Suddenly we’re the one’s who’ve been putting in the hours, busting our backs, sweating in the mines, and have knowledge and skill sets (they could totally go learn too if you wanted btw) that make us seem like the grizzled workers who had to learn everything the hard way, over years of toil.

And someone has replaced us as Hooper. The rich boy with all his fancy toys and gadgets his dad bought him, who’s never worked a day in his life, and just sits around thinking he can use his new gadget to make things that look just as good as ours (by secretly feeding millions of our images into his gadget).

We never ever IMAGINED the day would come, but the artists of the world, of all mediums, finally have someone to say “Gimme your hands” to, and pettily emasculate by crushing their hands.

My main decree has always been: AI artists, it doesn’t matter how good the programs get, it doesn’t matter what results it produces, no matter how real or how “cool” you’re able to make it look. You typed a prompt, your machine used our shit to do it. I can now FINALLY embody the spirit of my coal-mining forefathers, and call you a pansy who’s never worked a day in his life, and I’ll keep doing it forever.

[mama-qwerty]

Warning, AI rant ahead. Gonna get long.

So I read this post about how people using AI software don't want to use the thing to make art, they want to avoid all the hard work and effort that goes into actually improving your own craft and making it yourself. They want to AVOID making art--just sprinting straight to the finish line for some computer vomited image, created by splicing together the pieces from an untold number of real images out there from actual artists, who have, you know, put the time and effort into honing their craft and making it themselves.

Same thing goes for writing. Put in a few prompts, the chatbot spits out an 'original' story just for you, pieced together from who knows how many other stories and bits of writing out there written by actual human beings who've worked hard to hone their craft. Slap your name on it and sit back for the attention and backpats.

Now, this post isn't about that. I think most people--creatives in particular--agree that this new fad of using a computer to steal from others to 'create' something you can slap your name on is bad, and only further dehumanizes the people who actually put their heart and soul into the things they create. You didn't steal from others, the AI made it! Totally different.

"But I'm not posting it anywhere!"

No, but you're still feeding the AI superbot, which will continue to scrape the internet, stealing anything it can to regurgitate whatever art or writing you asked for. The thing's not pulling words out of thin air, creating on the fly. It's copy and pasting bits and pieces from countless other creative works based on your prompts, and getting people used to these bland, soulless creations made in seconds.

Okay, so maybe there was a teeny rant about it.

Anyway, back to the aforementioned post, I made the mistake of skimming through the comments, and they were . . . depressing.

Many of them dismissed the danger AI poses to real artists. Claimed that learning the skill of art or writing is "behind a paywall" (?? you know you don't HAVE to go to college to learn this stuff, right?) and that AI is simply a "new tool" for creating. Some jumped to "Old man yells at cloud" mindset, likening it to "That's what they said when digital photography became a thing," and other examples of "new thing appears, old people freak out".

This isn't about a new technology that artists are using to help them create something. A word processing program helps a writer get words down faster, and edit easier than using a typewriter, or pad and pencil. Digital art programs help artists sketch out and finish their vision faster and easier than using pencils and erasers or paints or whatever.

Yes, there are digital tools and programs that help an artist or writer. But it's still the artist or writer actually doing the work. They're still getting their idea, their vision, down 'on paper' so to speak, the computer is simply a tool they use to do it better.

No, what this is about is people just plugging words into a website or program, and the computer does all the work. You can argue with me until you're blue in the face about how that's just how they get their 'vision' down, but it's absolutely not the same. Those people are essentially commissioning a computer to spit something out for them, and the computer is scraping the internet to give them what they want.

If someone commissioned me to write them a story, and they gave me the premise and what they want to happen, they are prompting me, a human being, to use my brain to give them a story they're looking for. They prompted me, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY WROTE THE STORY. It would be no more ethical for them to slap their name on what was MY hard work, that came directly from MY HEAD and not picked from a hundred other stories out there, simply because they gave me a few prompts.

And ya know what? This isn't about people using AI to create images or writing they personally enjoy at home and no one's the wiser. Magazines are having a really hard time with submissions right now, because the number of AI generated writing is skyrocketing. Companies are relying on AI images for their advertising instead of commissioning actual artists or photographers. These things are putting REAL PEOPLE out of work, and devaluing the hard work and talent and effort REAL PEOPLE put into their craft.

"Why should I pay someone to take days or weeks to create something for me when I can just use AI to make it? Why should I wait for a writer to update that fanfic I've been enjoying when I can just plug the whole thing into AI and get an ending now?"

Because you're being an impatient, selfish little shit, and should respect the work and talent of others. AI isn't 'just another tool'--it's a shortcut for those who aren't interested in actually working to improve their own skills, and it actively steals from other hardworking creatives to do it.

"But I can't draw/write and I have this idea!!"

Then you work at it. You practice. You be bad for a while, but you work harder and improve. You ask others for tips, you study your craft, you put in the hours and the blood, sweat, and tears and you get better.

"But that'll take so looooong!"

THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT WORTH IT! You think I immediately wrote something worth reading the first time I tried? You think your favorite artist just drew something amazing the first time they picked up a pencil? It takes a lot of practice and work to get good.

"But I love the way [insert name] draws/writes!"

Then commission them. Or keep supporting them so they'll keep creating. I guarantee if you use their art or writing to train an AI to make 'new' stuff for you, they will not be happy about it.

This laissez-faire attitude regarding the actual harm AI does to artists and writers is maddening and disheartening. This isn't digital photography vs film, this is actual creative people being pushed aside in favor of a computer spitting out a regurgitated mish-mash of already created works and claiming it as 'new'.

AI is NOT simply a new tool for creatives. It's the lazy way to fuel your entitled attitude, your greed for content. It's the cookie cutter, corporate-encouraged vomit created to make them money, and push real human beings out the door.

We artists and writers are already seeing a very steep decline in the engagement with our creations--in this mindset of "that's nice, what's next?" in consumption--so we are sensitive to this kind of thing. If AI can 'create' exactly what you want, why bother following and encouraging these slow humans?

And if enough people think this, why should these slow humans even bother to spend time and effort creating at all?

Yeah, yeah, 'old lady yells at cloud'.

[yaboirezzy]

Alright, here's an explanation (post version):

So this is something I wouldn't usually say publicly because I don't really like telling and sharing my personal stuff online, especially on social places like tumblr or others because of how people usually react to someone feeling or saying anything about themselves. Also because I rather vent stuff in rather than bothering everyone close to me online about it. But I feel like making an exception just this once because this is actually about my tumblr blog.

So on my blog I've been doing all kinds of stuff over the past few years, artworks (both digital and traditional), text post, memes, incorrect quotes, and so on. And don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, I was happy with it, but in recent times I really feel like I've done nothing but make some low effort garbage that people only viewed or liked out of pity and nothing else. I feel like I've slowly changed from a someone eager to share their love and interest for their favorite fandoms to an annoying little shithead that won't stop yapping about anything (be it headcanons, AUs, ships) regarding their fandoms.

Especially when the stuff they waffle about aren't even as good as to what other people do. Artwork? everyone else had done better artwork of their favorite hyperfixations, character fanart, ship fanart, you name it? then it's guaranteed that everyone else done it better. Text post? everyone has made ones that are much better than mine, some even I based or took inspiration from (which is pretty much stealing I think). Memes or meme redraws? again mine looks like something out of the early 2000s compared to others. Incorrect quotes? god I can't believe that these are what I started with and are what 90% of my blog is about, yet I can't even get them right or being good at least. And those are just the basics, picture this people usually make artwork to show their love towards something they like and usually show others why they like or spread the popularity of their favorite thing, well guess who fucking sucks at that aspect as well? Showing my love towards my favorite fandom though artwork or text or quotes? awful at it, you would think I was young kid who just got introduced to them, trying to increase the popularity of an otherwise underrated or unknown fandom of mine? suck at it, just showing an image of them would've done a better job promoting each series, what about trying to seem like an active fan and participating in trends or events within the fandom? well me not being able to follow an 'art week' thing and being late to a redraw trend should be a clear sign as to how that goes.

And that's the reason why I wanna end myself I've been feeling so terrible about myself lately, I feel like trash about not being able to do the stuff I wanted to do whether it's artwork, text post, or even interacting with others.

In terms of artwork and meme redraws I just wanna see my vision come to life be that in the artstyle, the position/posing, or look/quality, but I can't due to limitations and whatnot. That's why I'm always eager to see art from others, but I know everyone's got other things to worry about, it's also why I feel like an absolute leecher whenever I ask or even request any of my artist mutuals anything their art is so much better than mine and I hate how I couldn't even mimick a fraction of their quality. It just makes me feel sick that I considered myself the same to them, I have done nothing worthy like them yet I always try to fit in as an 'artist' among actual real ones.

In terms of text post and incorrect quotes, I don't even know why any of you liked those, or even reblogging them. I've seen people put genuine care and effort into their headcanons, AUs, fanfics, even incorrect quotes and yet here I am saying the dumbest ideas and thoughts ever. Not only are they so bad, so low effort, and so braindead to read for any rational human being, but they are just so not funny, like at all like please fucking make it stop, I mean from what you'd probably seen on others you'd at least expect me to be another one of those it's so bad it's funny kind of stuff, but no, I just keep making dishwasher slop over and over and people are liking them, why? why are you all doing this to yourselves? you'd have a better time watching the series my stuff is about than liking and reblogging it.

Again, this is really something I've kept hidden and I've only now talked about with one of my mutuals, but I feel the need to make this just so I can say from the bottom of my heart:

I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything I've said. I'm sorry for everything I've done, I don't care if they're good, bad, neutral, or means nothing at all. I'm sorry I couldn't done more or better. I'm sorry to all my mutuals and friends. I'm sorry that I'm broken, I couldn't be fixed. I'm just...I'm sorry that I exist here.

Please just let me be in pain alone...

[1o1percentmilk]

I'm just very affected by stereotypes around masculine vs feminine fields... I like fitting in, at least superficially, and I want to be liked. Growing up I was never actually told that I couldn't do anything because I was a girl, but I felt it... like, "girls are worse at math" and "girls naturally don't want to go into stem"... So I, as a girl who was good at math, felt an obligation to succeed in STEM, and prove to everyone that a girl could do these things! Even more, I wanted to prove to everyone that a trans man who was socialized as a girl could do STEM, and fight the stereotype that trans men are relegated to the arts and humanities, or only take up artistic careers. I wanted to be different and prove that trans men had the same capabilities as cis men.

But... as I get further and further into my tech career... I feel guilty because in my case... the stereotypes are right. I'm not good at math beyond calculus, and I don't have any motivation to pursue programming projects of my own. I'm not good at physics and while I'm good with computers, I don't go out of my way to get better at it. There are blips of enjoyment here and there and I try my best to cultivate interest, but the truth is that I am deeply unhappy with what I study. What I really want to do is to sit around and read and draw and talk to people. But I'm scared to admit it, because then that means they were right, and I can't do anything useful. In some form it strips away part of what makes me feel masculine and I don't feel comfortable with that.

I think that part of it is a burden on me to separate gender from profession and field, because I definitely do have a lot of hangups around that. I'm majoring in Computer Science because it makes me feel "malebrained" and I don't think that's like, a thought process that any normal person has. (I am not normal). But I think the other part is that it shouldn't be on me to represent an entire population of people. It's a good thing to do, certainly, but trying to be "good transgender rep" in real life shouldn't be any single person's goal.

Why should I be a more virtuous person, put more effort into my day, count my missteps more, for the reason of being a minority population? Why should I push myself to do things I don't enjoy for the purposes of pointing to someone that "HEY! I'm a man too! And I can DO STUFF just like men! Because hey! Men and women can do the SAME THINGS!" Maybe I'm making up a person to get mad at, someone who really believes that "female brains" aren't wired the same as "male brains."* But why can't I just be allowed to exist and make mistakes just like anyone else?

I don't want to have to be a shining pillar of society just to be a human.

*this footnote is here because I am quite sure that these people exist; in fact, I had a rather notorious Computer Science professor, Stuart Reges, for one of my first classes of uni, ever, who wrote an article titled "Why Women Don't Code." It's as bad as you expect, and is my Roman Empire.

[cubur]

Hi Cubur♡♡, I would like to be able to give you a hug and be able to be your friend so I can listen to everything you have to say, please don't stay silent, if you need to say something, don't hold back. I'm one of the anons who long ago told you "you are the first Naruto artist I have ever met" and the truth is that I think you are an incredible person, your art always makes me happy and I love how you manage to capture all the emotions of the ship and the characters. You also sometimes remind me of Sasuke, such a magnificent and good character to whom many bad things happened, but although he often wanted to do things alone, he still had Naruto who was never going to leave him. I hope one day you find your Naruto. I want you to know that there are many people who love you, many people who you make happy, maybe not all of us know you but I know that if I did I wouldn't be disappointed because you are a good person, with deep thoughts, you seem like someone who likes to look out the window and think about life, that is, you are someone super interesting. And I also wanted to tell you that many times I have felt sad, I have even come to think that without me the world would not change or that maybe they would miss me but that after a while they would forget about me, but then I found my Naruto or rather my Guy since I'm more like Kakashi, but thanks to that person and other things that I later realized, I decided to study Psychology, this way I can help others like they helped me. If I had the appropriate knowledge I would also help you but the truth is that I speak Spanish and my English is not very good, and I would also be afraid to tell you something that is not since I'm still studying. So as an anonymous friend I wanted to tell you that you also helped me in sad moments, and without you realizing it, that's why I feel that many times help comes from anywhere and that even the smallest things can save our lives.

Sorry for writing so much, I hope I haven't bothered you, thank you for all your effort, te quiero♡ and please don't let your light go out

Hi there！ Well, I just don't know what to say right now… Since I'm usually the one who writes such long articles, it seems a bit strange to receive a message like this now ^^;！

(sorry this will be a bit long)

First of all, I sincerely appreciate that you're thinking so positively about me. I'm not sure if you'd still think that way if you knew me in real life though… I mean i'm actually quite a regular person contrary to what you guys think. Hmm (probably not everyone thinks about committing suicide or deleting everything every day) so yea, maybe not so regular…… But sure that I'm not as great as you guys think. Look I can't even solve my personal/emotional problems by keeping my mouth shut. Why is it so hard to keep going when it's so easy to leave everything? Idk… But still, it feels good now to hear that even someone like me made someone happy！I know very well what this feeling is like *since i'm still someone's fan* So I'm glad i can still make someone feel this way！I mentioned earlier that i feel closer to Sasuke's character. But I can never imagine i have a personality like Sasuke, not that strong pls x) …or maybe we can be the same in terms of psychological. I mean i could probably lose my mind too if i lost my loved ones. Yes, I often get messages like this, "you can write me if you need someone, I can listen you, don't be silent, tell me, trust me" etc. And I would like to talk to you guys but…… my problem is I have a really difficult time trusting people, and when I do, i don't even want to share them with others. This goes for everyone I love …even my pets. I know how selfish that sounds. But I accidentally read a turkish quote about this today. "Uçarken görüp uçmasına aşık olduğunu, sevdin diye kafese koyma". So if I can translate it right, it says "Don't put it in a cage just because you saw it flying and fell in love with its flight". I have no right to do this i know, that's why i'm trying to change myself though it's hard. Maybe if I take some healthier steps about communicating, my psychological state will start to improve, even if it is a little bit, who knows. Gotta start somewhere…

Oh but everyone wants a Naruto in their life, right?? Well, no one knows what the future will bring to us. Yes we are all hope for something about our future, but those things may not be the right path for us (even if we don't know it), so over time obstacles will come our way that we cannot prevent even if we wanted to, and eventually we will realize sooner or later that we are in a dead end, and need to change our path …in the most painful way. About me, I still don't know if i'm in the decision stage yet… But at least now I know that when things start to get clearer, I'll accept them without questioning why.

Just, you don't know how much I appreciate your willingness to help me. So thank you for all your kind thoughts here and taking the time to write me all this！I'm grateful！！🙏

And ok, this is not a promise but, I'll keep running as much as i can to avoid losing that little light at the end of the tunnel…

[birbycakes]

saw some stuff I really didn't agree with and wanted to rant so yeah

basically it was someone trying to defend AI (this is the second time I've seen this) by saying if you hate AI you love copyright laws. Like... okay. IDK how to elaborate this clearly but my main point is: this is such black and white thinking

One of them brought up like, "So do you think Anne Rice had a right to ban people from making fanfiction" like fanfic is comparable to having your work reposted without credit or art traced/stolen/etc. I'd say a more comparable instance would be, in art terms, someone making fanart or fanfics of someone's OCs. Most people like that? You'd be hard-pressed to find people who'd be angry at getting fanart of their OCs. However if someone had their entire novel stolen, and the person who stole it claimed it as theirs, and then made money off it, far more than the person who actually made it did/the person who made it never made ANY money. Well. You Know. that's incredibly dickish of them. Like leave law out of it, that would be a morally reprehensible thing to do. So what, you just... let the thief run off and suffer no consequences, not even social ones? is this our Glorious Land of Communism we are hoping for? Fuck the petit bourgeois artists and creatives steal from them all you want you aren't allowed to feel like you've earned a level of ownership on the ideas you make anyone is allowed to take it and wipe their ass with it and profit off it and you can just sit there in the dirt and cry.

And I'm not even saying all this as a "make copyright stronger" standpoint I don't think copyright should be a thing! But I get the weird feeling the people I've seen arguing this are more like... getting mad that people dare to get mad at their work getting stolen or ripped off. Not even from a law standpoint just "well why would you be mad someone stole your art and profited of it, in either attention or money. What are you some capitalist bourgeois oppressor? The REAL enlightened people like us know that your work has no personal value and anyone should be able to chew it up and spit out and you should just sit there and smile because that's a Good Thing. Anyways please stop getting mad at us when we use AI we should be allowed to do whatever we want without getting any consequences."

Like sure in this ideal land where no one has to make money to survive, I guess Who Cares, but we don't live in a fantasy land where artists don't need to make money so who cares if their work gets stolen, by AI or otherwise. Unless you think people are bad people or the "petit bourgeois" if they dare to use a skill they've developed to make a living (the anti-working class bastards that they are). So yeah, in Reality where we are living, this is an issue and people are right to be upset about it. Like personally I think the lawsuit around it is gonna fuck shit over SO bad (and also I just hate the main mouthpiece for it, she shilled for nft shit too she's just money grubbing and out-for-herself and doesn't really care about helping other artists)

Like it feels like people are coming up with the most annoying ass-pulls for why Generative AI is Good and Fine and Okay, actually! You're ableist if you don't like it (an incredibly ableist statement in of itself), or you're a copyright-loving capitalist shill if you don't like it (just clearly a bad-faith argument).

OH AND ANOTHER THING. There is also an argument to be made about like... it's one thing for a person to say, make art (they drew it themselves or wrote it themselves and put in real human effort and creativity) that is transformative of someone's work, and profit off of it. It's another for someone to lift someone's work completely to make profit off of it (because usually if someone is doing that and is a full grown adult who should know better, it's for profit). There's no effort no creativity just a money grubbing asshole. Same can be said for people who use genai for profit (There are. SO MANY.) there is no effort no creativity just "hey robot make me a thing" *robot chews up a bunch of existing artwork and spits out some sub par garbage* "here is thing" "sweet thanks. anyways this is akin to me creating something and I deserve money for it and respect. treat me like a real artist." ITS JUST. HOW CAN YOU SEE THAT AND BE LIKE "Yeah that's fine people should be allowed to do that. it's okay who cares :)" that's just fucking stupid.

Anyways like I said I just wanted to rant and this is word vomit but whatever.

[angstics]

Abt the post u reblogged so u think using ai is ok? Honestly I get where “it’s theft” crowd come from because even if u copy something while drawing, the drawing won’t ever be exactly like the original. Furthermore there’s actual effort ppl put into their work. Ai is lazy and even if the person using it is a genius I think there has to be a difference between someone who put effort into training themselves to draw. Ai might be art but the person behind ai shouldn’t be called an artist. Creativity is only part of the package. All these philosophies aside, we live in a world where artists are losing job’s because of this. There’s also a philosophy that if something makes a mass of people upset then it’s wrong. A lot of people are losing jobs to machines. Yes we should destroy capitalism and machines are only part of the problem but that’s not happening. For now we can do the next best thing which is keeping our job so we won’t starve

wga writers having their work protected from ai is good. but there’s a difference from feeding a specific work to get a specific result to undermine a specific artist, to using a generator w widespread sources to form images purposefully with ai as the medium. the ai is the point. i think laziness depends on what the process is like. are collagists lazy for not taking their own photos? maybe, if it doesn’t transform the source. i dont think it’s an inherent quality of ai art. much of what you can criticize ai art for you can say about human art, other than the “mechanization of art” argument that doesnt apply to small experimental projects like what the Big Discourse is all about. this is someone who is considered an artist being paid to make what is considered art. no one in specific is undermined. just the general idea of “real artists”. it’s kinda ridiculous to try to determine what art is and who deserves to be an artist in this context.

[walks-the-ages]

Here's a rebloggable version, since Cryptotheism blocked me, and any one else in the reblogs calling them out for using AI!

Apparently local Tumblr Funnyman can't handle it when people don't find their "jokes" funny when it's at the expense of artists:

[ID: A screenshot of a tumblr post by user cryptotheism , marked green in shinigami eyes, where they have posted AI-generated art of Goku from Dragonball-Z speaking to two men in turbans, with various AI-glitches in the photo, such as a random pumpkin with slashes on the front, Goku only having 4 fingers on one of his hands, and extra turban floating in the background. Cryptotheism has captioned the image "Rabbi Moshe De Leon Discusses Theology With Goku - Coño Culo, 14th century". Below Cryptotheism's original post, a blog, censored for privacy, has responded "Ew this is plagiarism algorithm, not real art". Below, in response, Cryptotheism has responded with "This was painted in the 13th/14th century by celebrated Andalusian artist Coño Culo. It is one of the earliest historical examples we have of Goku interacting with Spaniards." End ID]

Here's the response I posted, which they blocked me for less than an hour after I made it:

This type of post is especially heinous of OP, because using AI "because its funny" is literally a tactic to normalize AI art -- aka, art theft.

"no one was going to be paid to paint this!!!" The replies cry over and over again; "therefore its fine for me to use AI bullshit that steals the work of thousands if not millions of artists to make it, instead of putting any effort into it myself via a simple photo edit, or actually commissioning/requesting it of someone!"

"there's ai databases that are trained only on public domain images!!!!" Okay so why is Goku there? I kinda doubt Goku is in public domain art. That means this scraped art from non-public domain images, and is stealing from fan artists.

It's especially shameful for popular blogs to do it, because you've got people rabidly defending it as a knee jerk reaction.

The fact Cryptotheism had to restrict the replies of the post, because so many people were calling them out for using AI art, and even went as far as editing the original post to be a shitty Dark Souls thing to hide what they'd done-- stealing art for the sake of a joke?

I hope every single person sees this version, and realizes just how low Tumblr Funnymen™ are willing to sink for the sake of a """joke"""

-- even if it means directly contributing to the normalization of artists, writers, voice actors, and more losing their work and livelyhood to AI-generated bullshit.

Because that's what you're doing here. You are actively contributing to the normalization of AI bullshit.

Its literally an alt-right tactic to recruit people via memes and "jokes" for a reason.

If you claim to support artists and writers and actors against losing their jobs to AI, only to turn around and reblog "funny memes" literally made by AI "because no one was going to get paid to paint it", then congrats! You don't actually care about protecting hardworking artists!

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67922303

https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/midjourney-ai-art-image-generators-lawsuit-1234665579/

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/27/the-current-legal-cases-against-generative-ai-are-just-the-beginning/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-stable-diffusion-stability-ai-lawsuit-artists-sue-image-generators/

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66866577

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/famous-artists-trained-ai-generator-viral-list-rcna131995

"I usually hate AI art, but I'm reblogging this because its just too funny!" = "I don't actually care about artists having their work stolen as long as it's palatable enough for my tastes"

Not only did Cryptotheism block me, they're also blocking anyone in the reblogs who points out that their post has been has edited to be a Dark Souls meme, with the replies restricted, because they apparently couldn't stand people in the replies calling them out for the AI and wanted to try to hide it to prevent further backlash:

https://www.tumblr.com/original-post-locator/740713306199818240/tumblr-user-cryptotheism-posted-an-ai-generated?source=share

^ try to find the above post in the notes of the original post, and it will not show up at all, meaning that Cryptotheism also blocked this blog to prevent this from showing up in the notes.

When asked on their blog about why they are using AI art generators when it's widely known (and in this case, they're literally blocking anyone who offers proof) that it harms real world artists, actors, and writers, Cryptotheism continues to double down that it's somehow harmless because it's a joke--

-- when as my original post points out, and other people in the replies and reblogs of the original post (if they're still visible and haven't been blocked as well by the OP) : turning AI art into memes and jokes is literally how AI art is going to be normalized.

In real time, January 2024, Voice Actors are already losing their jobs to AI. Writers and artists were on strikes for months in 2023 to fight to protect their livelyhoods from predatory AI-- (and even then, the Union decided Voice Actors were expendable and didn't consult them when signing a predatory deal that resulted in the current cases of game companies being able to "hire" AI voice actors)

If you knowingly reblog AI Art uncritically simply "because it's funny" or because "no one is going to get paid to do this obscure, wacky art for me", you are literally contributing to art theft and the entitled culture of AI Art Bros, who think because they can't afford to commision someone, and because they're too fucking lazy to draw/edit something themselves, that means they're entitled to stealing the art of anyone who's ever posted on the internet.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/robin-williams-ai-voice-daughter-b2422506.html

Robin Williams' daughter has had to speak up about how people have been using AI to recreate her father's voice after his death from suicide in 2014:

Sunday (2 October), actor Zelda, 34, posted: “I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI. “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. “This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real. I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings.” She added: “Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance. “These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

TL;DR:

User Cryptotheism made a "joke post" using an AI-generated image of Goku in a classical painting style, then edited the original post to something completely different and blocked anyone in the reblogs who criticized them for using AI after receiving backlash, and has continued to insist it's just a funny joke and not a big deal that they are normalizing art theft.

[joayri]

ok so i remembered i am a physical being on earth with aspirations and thoughts and dreams and also remembered that i have a drawing tablet that hasnt seen much use besides playing Osu! ocasionally and also that im legally allowed to post cringe

i asked for the roblox avatar's of some people i know and then decided to draw them, the result is what you'd expect from someone with the artistic skills of my level and i thought this would be a good place to post the cringey drawings i made yes i know it looks bad

this goober was the first one i got when i asked for people's roblox avatar

i decided to do this simple headshot (is that what it's called?) in an attempt to understand layering in shading a little bit, i think it looked really cool

the next one i got i decided to go a little bit further and actually like , draw a body

this one looked, meh-ish, i got asked "where the boobs" and i had to tell them "its above my skill level :pensive_emoji:" and that's true because if it wasnt i totally woulda done it

when i showed this 4 people thought it was neat (including the person's whose avatar it belonged to) and one guy called me the n word and told me to leave the server but i wont let that shake me so a 4/5 "neat" ratio is a win to me

this next one is one is one im also proud of, because it was when i figured out that: My tablet settings were kinda fucked (damn you Windows Ink)

and 2: i actually received good advice art wise, this is what the end result looks like

this one looks not that bad compared to the other ones, i'd say it is probably the best one so far and its the one i received most helpful criticism about during the process of making it, so i guess i'm proud of that one

it will probably take me ages to reach a point where i can truly be able to do art the way i want it to, and practice is a good method and also getting over the fact that i'm gonna be forced to do "bad art" before getting to a point where i can do "good art" if such concepts are even a real thing, im not gonna hide my intentions and be fully honest i just wanna learn art to draw big titty protogen women and by god i'm gonna put in effort to reach my goal.

if anyone got advice or anything in general to say please do so i'm down to hearing people out and best of luck to ye who read this far

off to figure out how to tag stuff properly