#i want to edit some photos. i might

[davidrebooted]

Found this photo WAYY ago and didnt post it however i was thinking of it again today and we NEED to start talking about it + some more random ones below the cut ^ ^

[mattodore]

everyone say hi to elias 👋 they enjoy long walks on bloodstained beaches and failing perception checks

[the-kipsabian]

[icewindandboringhorror]

Baby boy brother birthday photos from last year that I just realized I never uploaded!

[eddiebuckley-diaz]

"Well, I mean, you could always just conveniently forget to text her."

[spittingspite]

Literally never made an amv before but this ship is rotting my brain from the inside out so here

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 14: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should relax by spending his afternoon shopping ..

~

He trots down the mossy cobblestone walkway, gazing around in awe as he approaches the central hub of the small city. Tiny shops and stalls and carts are woven through the few clusters of taller buildings, with a modest crowd bustling back and forth between them. Despite much of the land being cleared for structures and pathways, it's still lush with greenery wherever it can be, every blank stone wall or street corner dotted with trailing vines and flowering fruit trees.

After spending a good 25 minutes trying to orient himself at the city map directory, he finally finds his way onto one of the primary shopping streets, eager to spend the afternoon lazily strolling about, trying to ignore his physical aches and just take in all the sights as he hunts for interesting items....

...A few hours (and multiple snack breaks) later, the streets begin to glow with a hazy warmth as lanterns are lit, marking the nearing sunset. Possibly because of the fight yesterday, he's felt shakier, more easily startled than usual, and suddenly realizes an urgent need to be safely inside his room at the inn before nightfall. He wanted to stay out longer, see the lights and the crowds, fascinating scenes of city nightlife he's never been exposed to before.. but, his nerves are impossible to ignore.

Begrudgingly preparing to slink off towards the inn in a sweaty anxious panic, he stops in the doorway, resolving to at LEAST buy himself ONE nice item before he leaves. He doesn't have much money, sure, but it'd be a shame to simply look around all day and not get anything. All travelers need to collect their souvenirs, right? But.. What should he get?

-

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Additional Information (feel free to skip this part, it's just extra context for people who are interested lol)

just for record (in case it influences what people think he should buy), this is the adventurer's current inventory contents:

small journal + pencil to document his travels (and a few colored pencils for sketching plants or doodling)

a basic travel guide booklet

a simple map of the area

a small glass lantern case you can put candles in

fire starting materials

basic matches

first aid kid (a few bandages, simple antibacterial balm, some dried herbs that can be used for minor issues like stomach aches or nausea)

one metal cup, one metal bowl/plate thing, one metal fork/spoon, a cooking knife, and one metal pot for cooking over the fire

a basic toiletry bag (toothbrush, herbal mixture toothpaste type thing, bar of soap, one towel, a rag, a few disposable paper napkins, moisturizing oil, hair brush, a tiny cracked mirror)

three bottles of various spice mixes for flavoring the plain/bland food he usually forages on the road (+ plain salt)

a glass jar of berries

a container of plain dried oats

a container of dried beans

half a loaf of stale bread

one carrot he found

a bag of dried fruit

about 15 coins (maybe equivalent to $45 USD in our world money lol)

a basic fishing kit (simple lures, hooks, string)

two containers of canned fish just as a back up in case he ever can't find fresher food for the cat

a cheesy fairytale romance novel about people going on a grand heroic journey, to help give him inspiration to continue on his own travels and be the ultimate Super Cool Adventurer Hero

an old folded up letter from his family

a fabric pouch of cool shiny rocks + other trinkets he's collected

one change of underwear, one change of socks, + winter gloves

foldable saw

some twine/string

a basic sewing kit (2 needles, one spool of thread, a thimble)

lawyer's business card (from boat party)

lawyer's fancy expensive giant scarf (also from party)

1 lunchbox of vegetable dumplings (from Innkeeper)

2 canteens of water

a small dagger for cutting rope, vines, multipurpose anything

a little tin of mint & rose flavored candies for when his mouth gets dry

a box of cubed dried chicken as cat treats

a box of fancy tea

one large rope

a roll of fabrics (one thick blanket for padding when sleeping on the ground, some basic tent fabric to make shelter from, a few spare fabric scraps, 2 cloth napkin/towel things, two cloth sacks for extra carrying capacity if needed)

1 pouch of dried meat

5 candles

Innkeeper's hand-drawn map to her brother's hideout

and of course, the Mysterious Egg in a little wooden box

the adventurer's current main quest: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has

[raiiny-bay]

my favorite posts of the year :-)

links to full posts below the cut:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12

[dandyshucks-moving]

woah rare other system part sighting lmao, here's a Guz drawn by not-Juno

[cowplantfarmer]

Herding outtakes pt.2

[goethitee]

cletus bloopers from our walk yesterday

[mattodore]

vanishing without explanation for six days

[asterchats]

aster daily life updates that are turning more weekly! the little pot plant i think is set to actually leaf her leaf that she's been working on, and the nasturtia out the front are still growing happily along but I think I might be overwatering them, because I have a lot of green but not a lot of flowers. i am thinking about booking a holiday just for me in the next couple of months and we'll see how realistic this plan is, I just wiped out all my 'it's ok for this money to fluctuate to this extent' money buying easter things for the fam. i think having a break that's solely about me rather than about visiting family members will.... be good for me? i am really hoping so, and i think it might put me in a position again where breathing is a little more possible and i'll be able to make more solid decisions about whether i do the placement this year or not. i am leaning really heavily towards 'not' just for the fact i know that burnout is around the corner and i don't want to impact my ability any more than i already have. i'm also excited about the new socks i'm trying! they're a good length for socks and it's interesting to enjoy them at this length? I bought them by mistake, they're quarter crew socks, but I think they're exactly the length that i have always liked socks to be. those are my updates! love u guys

[maikaartwork]

Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know. 

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible. 

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again. 

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions. 

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account. 

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance. 

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info. 

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn. 

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it. 

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.

[ms-demeanor]

Why reblog machine-generated art?

When I was ten years old I took a photography class where we developed black and white photos by projecting light on papers bathed in chemicals. If we wanted to change something in the image, we had to go through a gradual, arduous process called dodging and burning.

When I was fifteen years old I used photoshop for the first time, and I remember clicking on the clone tool or the blur tool and feeling like I was cheating.

When I was twenty eight I got my first smartphone. The phone could edit photos. A few taps with my thumb were enough to apply filters and change contrast and even spot correct. I was holding in my hand something more powerful than the huge light machines I'd first used to edit images.

When I was thirty six, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo class that used Lightroom Classic and again, it felt like cheating. It made me really understand how much the color profiles of popular web images I'd been seeing for years had been pumped and tweaked and layered with local edits to make something that, to my eyes, didn't much resemble photography. To me, photography is light on paper. It's what you capture in the lens. It's not automatic skin smoothing and a local filter to boost the sky. This reminded me a lot more of the photomanipulations my friend used to make on deviantart; layered things with unnatural colors that put wings on buildings or turned an eye into a swimming pool. It didn't remake the images to that extent, obviously, but it tipped into the uncanny valley. More real than real, more saturated more sharp and more present than the actual world my lens saw. And that was before I found the AI assisted filters and the tool that would identify the whole sky for you, picking pieces of it out from between leaves.

You know, it's funny, when people talk about artists who might lose their jobs to AI they don't talk about the people who have already had to move on from their photo editing work because of technology. You used to be able to get paid for basic photo manipulation, you know? If you were quick with a lasso or skilled with masks you could get a pretty decent chunk of change by pulling subjects out of backgrounds for family holiday cards or isolating the pies on the menu for a mom and pop. Not a lot, but enough to help. But, of course, you can just do that on your phone now. There's no need to pay a human for it, even if they might do a better job or be more considerate toward the aesthetic of an image.

And they certainly don't talk about all the development labs that went away, or the way that you could have trained to be a studio photographer if you wanted to take good photos of your family to hang on the walls and that digital photography allowed in a parade of amateurs who can make dozens of iterations of the same bad photo until they hit on a good one by sheer volume and luck; if you want to be a good photographer everyone can do that why didn't you train for it and spend a long time taking photos on film and being okay with bad photography don't you know that digital photography drove thousands of people out of their jobs.

My dad told me that he plays with AI the other day. He hosts a movie podcast and he puts up thumbnails for the downloads. In the past, he'd just take a screengrab from the film. Now he tells the Bing AI to make him little vignettes. A cowboy running away from a rhino, a dragon arm-wrestling a teddy bear. That kind of thing. Usually based on a joke that was made on the show, or about the subject of the film and an interest of the guest.

People talk about "well AI art doesn't allow people to create things, people were already able to create things, if they wanted to create things they should learn to create things." Not everyone wants to make good art that's creative. Even fewer people want to put the effort into making bad art for something that they aren't passionate about. Some people want filler to go on the cover of their youtube video. My dad isn't going to learn to draw, and as the person who he used to ask to photoshop him as Ant-Man because he certainly couldn't pay anyone for that kind of thing, I think this is a great use case for AI art. This senior citizen isn't going to start cartooning and at two recordings a week with a one-day editing turnaround he doesn't even really have the time for something like a Fiverr commission. This is a great use of AI art, actually.

I also know an artist who is going Hog Fucking Wild creating AI art of their blorbos. They're genuinely an incredibly talented artist who happens to want to see their niche interest represented visually without having to draw it all themself. They're posting the funny and good results to a small circle of mutuals on socials with clear information about the source of the images; they aren't trying to sell any of the images, they're basically using them as inserts for custom memes. Who is harmed by this person saying "i would like to see my blorbo lasciviously eating an ice cream cone in the is this a pigeon meme"?

The way I use machine-generated art, as an artist, is to proof things. Can I get an explosion to look like this. What would a wall of dead computer monitors look like. Would a ballerina leaping over the grand canyon look cool? Sometimes I use AI art to generate copyright free objects that I can snip for a collage. A lot of the time I use it to generate ideas. I start naming random things and seeing what it shows me and I start getting inspired. I can ask CrAIon for pose reference, I can ask it to show me the interior of spaces from a specific angle.

I profoundly dislike the antipathy that tumblr has for AI art. I understand if people don't want their art used in training pools. I understand if people don't want AI trained on their art to mimic their style. You should absolutely use those tools that poison datasets if you don't want your art included in AI training. I think that's an incredibly appropriate action to take as an artist who doesn't want AI learning from your work.

However I'm pretty fucking aggressively opposed to copyright and most of the "solid" arguments against AI art come down to "the AIs viewed and learned from people's copyrighted artwork and therefore AI is theft rather than fair use" and that's a losing argument for me. In. Like. A lot of ways. Primarily because it is saying that not only is copying someone's art theft, it is saying that looking at and learning from someone's art can be defined as theft rather than fair use.

Also because it's just patently untrue.

But that doesn't really answer your question. Why reblog machine-generated art? Because I liked that piece of art.

It was made by a machine that had looked at billions of images - some copyrighted, some not, some new, some old, some interesting, many boring - and guided by a human and I liked it. It was pretty. It communicated something to me. I looked at an image a machine made - an artificial picture, a total construct, something with no intrinsic meaning - and I felt a sense of quiet and loss and nostalgia. I looked at a collection of automatically arranged pixels and tasted salt and smelled the humidity in the air.

I liked it.

I don't think that all AI art is ugly. I don't think that AI art is all soulless (i actually think that 'having soul' is a bizarre descriptor for art and that lacking soul is an equally bizarre criticism). I don't think that AI art is bad for artists. I think the problem that people have with AI art is capitalism and I don't think that's a problem that can really be laid at the feet of people curating an aesthetic AI art blog on tumblr.

Machine learning isn't the fucking problem the problem is massive corporations have been trying hard not to pay artists for as long as massive corporations have existed (isn't that a b-plot in the shape of water? the neighbor who draws ads gets pushed out of his job by product photography? did you know that as recently as ten years ago NewEgg had in-house photographers who would take pictures of the products so users wouldn't have to rely on the manufacturer photos? I want you to guess what killed that job and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't AI)

Am I putting a human out of a job because I reblogged an AI-generated "photo" of curtains waving in the pale green waters of an imaginary beach? Who would have taken this photo of a place that doesn't exist? Who would have painted this hypersurrealistic image? What meaning would it have had if they had painted it or would it have just been for the aesthetic? Would someone have paid for it or would it be like so many of the things that artists on this site have spent dozens of hours on only to get no attention or value for their work?

My worst ratio of hours to notes is an 8-page hand-drawn detailed ink comic about getting assaulted at a concert and the complicated feelings that evoked that took me weeks of daily drawing after work with something like 54 notes after 8 years; should I be offended if something generated from a prompt has more notes than me? What does that actually get the blogger? Clout? I believe someone said that popularity on tumblr gets you one thing and that is yelled at.

What do you get out of this? Are you helping artists right now? You're helping me, and I'm an artist. I've wanted to unload this opinion for a while because I'm sick of the argument that all Real Artists think AI is bullshit. I'm a Real Artist. I've been paid for Real Art. I've been commissioned as an artist.

And I find a hell of a lot of AI art a lot more interesting than I find human-generated corporate art or Thomas Kincaid (but then, I repeat myself).

There are plenty of people who don't like AI art and don't want to interact with it. I am not one of those people. I thought the gay sex cats were funny and looked good and that shitposting is the ideal use of a machine image generation: to make uncopyrightable images to laugh at.

I think that tumblr has decided to take a principled stand against something that most people making the argument don't understand. I think tumblr's loathing for AI has, generally speaking, thrown weight behind a bunch of ideas that I think are going to be incredibly harmful *to artists specifically* in the long run.

Anyway. If you hate AI art and you don't want to interact with people who interact with it, block me.

[bringmemyrocks]

Dear friends,

Thank you so much to those of you who have supported and/or shared the story of my friend Loai, his family, and Gaza Plays Peace, the children's soccer program that he and his family run. The funds raised have helped the family and players with food, water, and shelter.

Above: Loai's family in Gaza: Mother, father, two brothers, two sisters, and three young nieces.

Until recently, Gaza Plays Peace operated out of Gaza City, but the Ahmed Family (including much of the GPP crew) has been displaced to Rafah. Their house in Gaza City has been destroyed. Some relatives and GPP players are still trapped in Gaza City and are unable to evacuate. I will update this post if that changes.

Above: the ruins of the Ahmed family home in Gaza City.

The Ahmed family's situation has become more dire, with children desperately needing medical care and nutrition that they cannot access in Rafah.

Every day these people live in fear that they might die at any moment because of the attacks being carried out on Rafah. Loai has set up this fundraiser to help his family evacuate.

Please donate if you are able. If you or your employer want to donate but require the donation to be tax-deductible, please reach out to me directly and I can help coordinate this. The GoFundMe is not tax-deductible at this time.

Loai has 9 family members he is trying to evacuate: 6 adults and 3 children. Travel agencies are willing to help families across the border for a price. Rates for evacuating adults are between $5000 and $7000 per adult, and rates for children under 12 are around $2500 per child. Including living and travel expenses immediately after evacuation and allowance for slight price increases, evacuating them will be around $60,000.

Loai gives more details (and photos, please look!) on his family members in the fundraiser itself, but here is a summary of the people we are trying to evacuate:

Loai's mother and father, Wesam and Eman

Loai's adult brother, Mohammed (coach of Gaza Plays Peace, pictured with players here in Summer 2023)

Loai's adult sisters, Reham and Elman

Loai's teenage brother, Omar (striker on GPP's first generation team--he is not a young child and would be charged the adult price for crossing)

Loai's 3 young nieces, Rafeef, Ayla, and Aylool (these three young girls, aged 5, 3, and 3, all need nutrition and medical care.) Rafeef played on the GPP junior team in 2023.

Please donate if you are able, and please share.

Thank you <3

Editing to add: please be mindful of the tags you use, as tags can get the post and/or fundraiser taken down