#but if anyone doesn't like the idea of me printing out their artwork this way- again exclusively for personal use!- just let me know!

[starflungwaddledee]

thought i'd share some photos of this little book i started picking around with for fun in my 'offline' time!

admittedly i'm not very good at this sorta thing, but i'm trying to get back into it (it is impossible not to be inspired by my gf's journalling work, oh my god). i found this unused planner with nice creamy pages, and i thought it might make a nice 'gallery' for starstruck dee giftart!

i'm so touched by all the artwork folks have drawn of her for events or gifts or trades, and i thought this would be a nice way to honour them while also giving me something fun to flick through!! it's also a really soothing way to spend a good chunk of time looking at and thinking about each piece while i design a layout around them! i write the occasional little notes, or i copy in tags or other little relevant bits so that i can remember them for longer than my weak memory would actually allow!

it's roughly chronological (though the 'cover' page is from the hnkss event in december), so here's the first few pages!

🎨 art credits 🎨 cover spread: @chaotixcowboy (santa for the hnkss 2023 event) page 1: @kamalemons (first ever gift art! + tags for context) page 2: @veveisveryuncool & @jojo-schmo (halloween interaction pieces!) pages 3-4: @moon-mage-ex (an entire spread just for you because you've actually done so many!!! wow!)

[ot3]

it's really interesting to me how much of the discussion around the use of AI image generation seems to revolve around the idea that there are really only two types of visual art that exist:

art intended for some sort of commercial use

and

2. art that gets made so that the artist can experience the Joys and Wonder of Creative Expressions Of Humanity

the first is one where i think there's some actual concern warranted. i do think it's legitimate to say that a lot of visual artists and photographers have had their work used in a way they couldn't possibly have predicted and had no means of opting out of. i definitely find it questionable to use ai generated images as a commercial product, especially when it's corporate entities doing it. and as always corporations will use whatever new tech they can to cut out human workers. it fucking sucks and warrants talking about but cutting out human artists for AI art use is an extension of the pre-existing phenomenon, not a new thing.

the second one is complete bullshit. would i personally get a lot of value out of Expressing Myself with ai image generation? absolutely not. maybe some people do. but for the most part anyone who values art as an experiential process and is unconcerned with the final product is already Doing That. they don't need a condescending post about the evocative nature of children's scribbling to know that the fidelity of a piece of artwork does not correspond to it's value. you're talking to the wrong fucking people.

the thing i feel like gets left out entirely is the millions of reasons why someone might want A Specific Image to exists that's outside of these two categories. maybe you just want a picture to go on your dnd character sheet but nothing on picrew has the right features. maybe you want a cartoon of your 4 year old daughter dressed as elsa to get printed on her birthday cake. maybe you want to send your coworker a picture of her dog on the rim of an active volcano as part of an ongoing inside joke. maybe you're a writer and want to whip up a quick visual for something as reference to make it easier to describe.

and i really struggle to understand what the material harm is in any of those things. the closest i can approximate is that people who have a problem with ai image generation for personal use seem to feel like either a. people are robbing freelance artists who do commissions of a Potential Sale which i don't think i need to explain why that's bullshit or b. the fact that they can have access to Images without having to Work Hard like I, a Real Artist did means they are committing some sort of karmic slight against me. and there really isn't any way to unpack/legitimize that particular critique that doesn't result in some ableism, as we've clearly seen.

[thirdtidemouse]

okay about the art school au

tell me if you have any bright sparkling ideas for this au bc god knows i would eat them up. like i said before i know johanna is a graphic designer now but she has roots in illustration theyre like siblings. she leans towards children's books, making up stories and weird wonderful characters out of thin air. her work is also very botanical - her doodles in the show are full of winding plants and flowers. she could fill a page with dense undergrowth.

gerda is a student too but she's like that one teacher that just LOVES fonts. she is graphic design, product design, interior design, going back and forth between the computer room and the workshop to lasercut something or to build a weird chair. she could probably run a company marketing department at 18.

i also said kaisa is an analogue photography girl. she doesn't really care for most commercial photography she's like a man ray superfan and probably gets snotty about using digital cameras sometimes but loves to mess around with unconventional and cameraless methods. she might smell like chemicals. she doesn't want anyone close enough to be able to tell. she has always been an academic nerd and it shines in her artist research, drawing from the most conceptual artworks and fascinating herself with what there is to discover about them. she would love mike nelson.

edmund is perpetually covered in ink, of all colours, on his hands and his face. he's constantly workshopping prints of all kinds, one of his final pieces being a gigantic woodcut relief print depicting mythical creatures with lots of iconographic detail (think luke pearson's norse-inspired patterns o_<). he takes print room safety VERY seriously. do not put your hands or hair anywhere near the roller on the press. he will get you.

ive got like an outline idea for 6-8 chapters depending on whether i do it as a comic or writing? comics take so much effort for comparatively less story coverage so it would be a big endeavor but i would really love to have it all in visuals (also i'm not a superstar writer?) it's so difficult because some things i want to describe like in written word but some things i want to have visual 😭 artwork between paragraphs could be good but idk how cohesive it would be and it might be a bit jarring to suddenly be reading what you were looking at and vice versa.. that kind of thing works really well for a memoir like alison bechdel's fun home but not so much straightforward fictional story idkkkk... i can like see some panels in my head but i also want to do long descriptions and idrk if i want to mash them together. if i really do this it's going to take some PLANNING

victoria is still crazy but in a much more creative way. she loves to discuss everyone's work with them, she loves weird and experimental stuff. she likes to make elaborate and unconventional sets, props, and costumes for her colourful multi-media short films. she loves any art that moves, and makes great use of audio, sampling heavy thunderstorms pretty often.

AND! if i included the creatures (as people) then tontu would be a fashion & textiles tutor. i shan't be taking questions.

also thank you for the inspiring tags @the-hilda-librarians-wife 😭 your hospital au was so awesome i might find myself doing footnotes like you did, describing techniques and stuff where it would be out of place to just straight up write it down in the story.. bc i am gonna get SCIENTIFIC with the photography

(if it was a comic i'm thinking about the fun I'd have with speech bubbles especially in a classroom/studio - one of my hugest ever inspirations is anatola howard and this comic is so spectacular for speech bubbles lol)

[infinitelycomplexpuzzles]

// oh boy the anti-ai people are back.

Man, you can dislike the idea of LLMs and such, but at least use actual data and not stupid and out of date talking points.

No one is 'feeding your writing' to an LLM to train it. The process to do that takes hundreds of hours of training and you'd have to have a rig to run it anyway. The smallest amount of VRAM an LLM uses to my knowledge is 16gb. Hardly something anyone can use.

Beyond that, there's no point, and it's very frustrating. Just go ahead and try something like NovelAI or CharacterAI and see what 'emulating writing' looks like in practice. I promise you, it's not producing masterpieces.

The stupid anti-AI sentiment doesn't even make sense, since you can absolutely train models on public domain works, and since you're not claiming to be reproducing anyone else's work, it isn't theft or forgery.

I mean, saying you're 'anti-ai' is all well and good, but I'm waiting for people to say 'I'm anti-photoshop's generative fill tool' or 'I'm anti-google pixel's magic eraser' because surprise those are the same technology.

Besides, legally speaking none of it is theft; you can't copyright or trademark a style. And trying to do so for individual images just means you're creating NFTs.

It's one thing to say 'I dislike the idea of computers removing the human element of the artistic process' but that's at least an argument that makes sense. If you're someone who deals with art as primarily a commercial enterprise, e.g. you buy and sell prints of things like movie posters and band albums and famous artwork, then you're already doing the same thing.

The worst anti-AI people are people who immediately go 'oh no I'll be replaced!' and to me that just says you have no faith in any of your friends to remain with you if they had a computer instead. If you think your friends would do that, they're no your friends.

So absolutely, if anyone wants to 'steal' my writing to claim they're writing with me, go crazy. They could just do that without saying anything. That's not a 'threat' anymore than saying they're going to buy mcdonalds to piss off vegans is a threat. They can do it and not tell you, they're looking for your emotional reaction.

I thought we on the internet, especially tumblr with it's long history of stupid about faces on issues (looking at you 'genderbending is anti-trans but multiverse versions of muses that happen to be the other gender aren't' arguments).

Just calm down and quit worrying about other people. Video games didn't destroy tabletop roleplaying, photoshop didn't destroy traditional art, and everyone having cameras on their phones didn't destroy cameras.

What you're dealing with is that when you lower the cost of entry to a space, such as making everyone able to buy cameras, you suddenly have a massive amount of lower quality photos to contend with. When you make it so anyone with a PC and MS Paint can make art, you get a lot more awful art.

But ultimately, none of that really effects you, the end consumer. It effects the professionals, which none of us are. In the end, they'll use the same tools they can, in the same way that CGI replaced hand drawn and scanned animation. That's just the way of things. No use using a typewriter when a keyboard exists.

So quit freaking out. It's embarrassing.

[howtobeaconartist]

I have an odd question about merching with traditional art vs digital. I'm a trad. artist who colors with marker/watercolor and want to do stickers and acrylic charms using my art. I did a sample of artwork colored digitally and tbh i really don't like it- it doesn't look like my style at all. My question is- do any of yall do your artwork for charms/stickers/etc using trad. artwork? If so, do the tiny variations in color, etc., negatively affect the finished product? (1/2)

”I��m pretty good at getting the colors consistent in PS, but worry that it might not look right when printed. Is there a good way to see how the colors might be affected before dropping tons of $$$ on charms and stuff? Thanks a ton for this blog, btw. It’s easing my anxiety about my first con :p”Nattosoup:  I work mainly in traditional art (watercolor and alcohol marker, often ink), although when I’m designing most of my merch, I prefer to work digitally, just because I can get cleaner color reproduction.  But you can see from my table that I have A LOT of traditional media work up for sale, or reproductions of such work available as books, charms, and mini prints.

SO!  You’re going to have to do some degree of digitization to your work regardless.  You’re going to have to scan it, to clean it up, to design it for the products you’re making.  How much digitization you want to do, and how much it differs from the original, is going to vary product to product.  I recommend you invest in color correction hardware like a Spyder or a ColorHug, so you can calibrate your monitor to accurately reflect color.  I have a post over on my blog about monitor color calibration.

My banners, mini prints, some of my stickers, my comics, and mini comics are all drawn, inked, watercolored, or markered traditionally.  I then scan them and fiddle with them in Photoshop- often just to get rid of unnecessary/unwanted color variation (say, the paper warping when scanning), to add more contrast (since my scanner tends to grey things out), or to bump up the color vibrancy.I print through:Overnight Prints (make SURE you format it in CMYK not RGB with them, they will not check for you)ShutterflyBuildASign (their print resolution is kinda crap, but it works well for banners)And I’ve used Staples skrim printing for the banner below.  I also print at home.Basic tips for making merch with traditional art:1. Scan in CMYK.  Edit in CMYK.  Printers print in CMYK, so the closer you can work within their gamut, the more accurate your work will be.

2.  Many places will send proofs- Createspace, Catprints, and many of the charm manufacturors will send a PDF proof to give you an idea of color accuracy, but you can also request or pay for physical proofs.  This will give you an idea of how it will print, and what you need to do to correct it.

3.  Scan LARGE.  I scan everything at 600 DPI, as I find it works best for large scale things like banners, and allows me to reutilize art.

Even with proofs, there’s a margin of error.  My third printing of 7″ Kara was ALL wrong- CreateSpace switched their printers, and didn’t send me a proof for me to double check, and I wasn’t aware that they’d switched printing services until I’d contacted them about it.   They wouldn’t replace them, wouldn’t refund me, and I had to sell them as is, as I can’t afford to just eat 50 miscolored books. If you’re printing traditional media onto merch, you may need to accept that the finished merch won’t necessarily look like your finished illustration.  You also need to keep in mind that without the original to compare it to, your customers might not care, especially if it still looks good.

4.  Order early!  This way if there’s a mistake or a misprint, you have time to get it straightened out.  Never order from a new supplier or source right before a show- that’s a great way to end up with product you can’t sell, or product you’re not quite comfortable selling.  Give yourself time to make mistakes.

5. Read their submission information CAREFULLY.  Follow their setup instructions carefully.  If you’re uncertain about something, email the company, and if they don’t respond with them, don’t continue to work wtih them.  If you’re concerned with your artwork fidelity, it’s better not to take risks with companies you cannot communicate with.  You’ll end up paying more (customer service always comes at a price), but you’ll also feel more comfortable because the communication will be there.

6.  Places that already do photo printing are generally good at reproducing original artwork.  I haven’t worked with anyone from AliExpress, but I have worked with Artscow and Shutterfly, and any place that does quality photo prints can reproduce traditional artwork faithfully onto objects.  I have bags, waterbottles, vinyl stickers, and more with my watercolor art printed onto it and while the price margins make it unfeasible to offer items like this for sale, I’m quite happy with the print quality, and regularly use these items.

7.  Work with what you’re comfortable with, then figure out how to digitize it for reproduction.  My wooden charms were originally traditionally inked (fude pen in sketchbook) designs, that were scanned and then reinked as vectors to cooperate with Ponoko’s laser cutter.  Most laser cutters prefer vectors, so you may have to get comfortable converting your art over.  I have a tutorial here on how to prep your files for Ponoko.8.  Start out with home manufacture and assembly. I do a fair amount of manufacturing at home.  I print and cut my own stickers, so I can adjust the color based on the printer and print quality.  I print and assemble my own mini comics and zines, so the same goes for those.  My dear friend Kabocha has a post on cutting stickers using a Cricut that you may find helpful if you get into home production.Basically if you followed instructions, you digitized your work properly, at the right resolutino and in the right color profile, and you requested a proof, you should be good!  Also!  If this post was helpful, or if you enjoy this blog, please click through the links on Nattosoup or Kiriska’s names, and check out our art!  You can also check out our about section for links on where you can tip each of us as individuals (HTBACA does not have a joint Kofi, Paypal, or Patreon)