I have a feeling this is AI-generated, to be honest. I first found it on a German site IIRC, but couldn’t find any significant matches apart from that.
I’ll try to avoid posting AI art in future, but I have to admit… some of it is pretty flippin’ impressive!
EDIT: No, I guess I’ll post more AI art in future, based on the positive response and discussion below. I’m frankly a little torn, but I’ll abide.
Good questions. *sweating a bit*
Our emphasis here is heavily pitched towards Euro comics, but I’d prefer to be easygoing about this stuff, and to welcome really anything with ‘BD vibes,’ so to speak.
So yeah, I’d love to see some photography along those lines. Do you have anything particular in mind?
I appreciate your candor, and though I don’t have anything in particular to offer as an example here, I do feel that it is a cultural imperative that artists do not turn away from advancing their tools, analog or otherwise — and AI is just that: an evolution of a tool set. To consider it anything more at this point is childishly naive, and to discount it as somehow disingenuous, fake, or cheating is laughably shortsighted if not moronically anachronistic. (Switch out “AI” for “abacus” and tell me you wouldn’t roll your eyes at anyone whinging at normalizing its use, claiming unfairness.)
Well, you obviously have strong feelings about this stuff.
As an artist myself, I frankly tend to view this stuff as being a discussion, and don’t feel firm upon either ‘side.’ While most of my later work (sketches, for the most part) has been digitally-made, it’s been made with very simple tools, like MS Paint. I was already staggered decades ago by the power of PS filters, and now so much more is possible, much of it without needing any artistic skills at all other than coming up with a good prompt.
So for those with an ‘anti-AI’ stance, I can understand at least part of their argument. As in-- across history, artistic tools have always advanced, as you point out, but what’s changed with stuff like MidJourney is that now, no hand-based skills whatsoever are required to produce amazing-looking pieces. It’s not even a case of replicating a ‘snapshot of the mind,’ because the user only needs input the barest of keywords, often to get results far different than they were expecting. Now is there plenty of skill involved in that? I guess so. Maybe. But undeniably, something significant has changed here.
Yet at the same time? You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and AI is certainly here to stay. People are going to have to cope if they don’t like it, it seems to me.
In any case, I’ve rambled way too much here, and do have some more AI-generated pieces to share. Since people appreciated this one so much, I guess I’ll post more, sometimes.
Again, I appreciate your candor and genuine interest in discussion (as an OG from that other place, this is a breath of fresh air, frankly), and I hear what you’re saying. My background is also in art from back when Photoshop was first offered as collegiate courses and that alone was a divisive aspect for a hot minute — though that too quickly normalized, and the detractors either knuckled down to learn the new skills or simply found other things to protest, I guess. I suppose what I’m getting at in all of this is less of a judgement of AI’s current capacity and more a forecast of its likeliest future forms, both technically and culturally.
Since very near the beginning of this boom, I’ve been fiddling around with various AI tools in my free time (not just graphics), and work in 3D sculpting/printing, so the whole landscape is supremely interesting to me on a number of levels.
In truth, I feel that it’s more a question of process automation than spontaneous generation in that a finished, viable piece is not attainable by a simple word string or “barest of keywords”, all due respect — though I completely understand that it can seem easy and unchallenging to go from text to marvelously vibrant dynamism in ultra detail. The fact is that the vast majority of skillfully created “AI generated” artwork (graphical or otherwise) requires not only thousands upon thousands of hours of high level coding, database training, and testing, but even then the end-user is required to compose and refine each prompt in the pursuit of their vision, making innumerable creative choices along the way.
Ultimately, I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, and I’m excited to see what else you’ll share in that regard here, for sure!
Thanks, certainly, and same. Indeed, I guess one nice thing that’s come out of our little exodus to the FV is that there’s more positive, invested user-engagement, and less casuals & ‘herd activity.’ Haha, at least for now.
Also, and just personally, it makes me feel honored that I was evidently the first to create a BD-themed community in the FV, and as a result, I have much residual goodwill towards the sub, my instance, and Lemmy in general.
Anyway, it doesn’t sound like we’re far apart on the issues, moreso that we’re coming from different activity & experience POV’s. It also occurs to me, based on your explanations, that it might just be that the traditional concept of “artist” is less useful than formerly. Sorta makes me curious if William Gibson coined any good anticipatory terminology in his “Neuromancer” series (that I haven’t read for ages).
1) Right, for sure. Those folks are like arch-mages to me, or whatnot. Indistinguishable from magic. :P
2) “Innumerable,” really? I’ve never really got that impression from the MidJourney posters, but what do I know? I’ve only played with the lower-tier free AI’s so far, and despite the quality being relatively crap (plus random-ish), it was pretty clear who was doing the heavy lifting there. Do you know of any good examples (like, articles) of people talking about the process of refining their prompts and settings?
Maaaan, you’re gonna drop Gibson and Clarke in the same reply? 🤣🤘🏼 I like your style, choom.
As for pt. 2, I’ll have to look in the morning, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a couple bookmarks I can share (though related Discord communities [prompt honing, training model techniques, etc] have proven surprisingly supportive and more than a little elucidating, really)
Haha, thanks. I’d completely forgotten where that quote came from, but me likey.
Funny, I just randomly discovered this little project, which was evidently built with Stable Diffusion + ControlNet.
So this is getting to be stoopid, my gawking on the sidelines like this, but I need to revive paypal or something and try this stuff out…