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.
Would you avoid posting photography, too? Or photoshopped images that you have no way of knowing how many complex macros the originator used, much less how many artists had a hand in each creation from concept to the posted version?
Regardless, I like this illustration quite a bit, in all honesty.
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!
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)
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) 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, 2) 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.
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…
@[email protected] Actually I have to go back to disagreeing with you in a sense, matey.
Scanning around a bit for new sources of ligne claire & BD news this morning, I happened upon my Pinterest feed (yes, the shame), and noticed a close approximation of the lighthouse art I posted above. Then another one, then another… then another one. I counted a dozen so far and decided to log out.
My man-- these are GOOD pieces IMO. It’s not that hard to spot the similarities, but man & boy, they’re impressive.
So yeah… I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for a minute that the prompt generator is going through any significant pains to create all this new stuff. Rather, it seems pretty fluffing obvious that once a good prompt was created, it took ~1% additional effort to spawn out a mass of good-looking, completely derivative stuff.
So… I have to let my “artist” side go in this case, and treat that shizzle with complete contempt in this particular case.
Seriously-- as the next procedural step, you might as well have AI generating the prompts for AI to produce great art off of. No biological units necessary. But maybe that’s for the best?
I’ll respectfully remind you that you’re essentially describing this tacky practice — one that has existed in some capacity since the very concept of qualitative judgement first occured to that prehistoric ancestor way back when. Mimicry is an elementary evolutionary trait, and yet plagiarism/piracy are petty propagandists’ labels for it that the greedy and unimaginative bandy about from atop their growing piles of the same.
Fun fact: Hollywood in its entirety was founded by the simple act of selecting a cheap AF stretch of land as far from European litigators as physically possible so that the “innovators” and cinematic “luminaries” of yore could blatantly rip off the artists from multiple nations with impunity for fuckloads of profit. Oh-so-ironically, that cash engine is loudly decrying this new technology on every front, stirring the public into a froth in every direction except historical ones.
Now, I’ll not say that AI isn’t capable of astounding feats of mimicry, of course. Hell, even a basic abacus can do your math homework for you in much the same way. Do not get yanked around by the nose on this, fellow pleb; this is exactly what they want to plant in the cultural soil. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the “innovators” and “luminaries”: cheap (foreign or otherwise) labor to produce unique tools/products (if not outright stolen), then the manufactured threat of legal destruction to lock down “ownership”, followed by selling “rights” licenses to the same populations that the original sprouted from.
This fervor benefits only one demographic, and it’s not us in the exploited majority. Write your own anthem, instead of riffing on the sheet music they hand you. 🤘🏼💀 Fuck the liars and lever pullers, friend.
Hmm. I’m not quite sure how to respond to that as a whole, but FWIW I can assure you that I’m certainly on board with viewing our greater society as being in ‘late-stage capitalism.’
That is-- I view the wealth divide as becoming ridiculous & toxic, with borderline-oligarchs in the spotlight like Bezos, Zuck and Musk all too willing to shamelessly ruin peoples lives (and the planet of course), heavily insulated as they are from reality. But of course, the problem is systemic and rampant, involving networks of many other individuals & exploiters.
Btw, me dumb, but I’m not quite sure I follow your critique of printing posters of famous public domain (presumably) art for profit. You almost seem to attack it and defend it there, so… yeah, me dumb.
No worries, we’re on the same page with all of that, and when the time comes, you’ll know my guillotine from the rest by the words emblazoned on its top beam, “Heroes work here”.
To the other point, I was more drawing a comparison of the ease by which such public domain pieces are churned out like technicolor toilet paper and the low-effort of those AI reiterations you’d mentioned. Their simple existence, much less their undeniably derivative creation process, does not prove the tech as largely plagiaristic — unless, of course, that also includes every student of any artform at all. Reduce the barrier of qualification enough, and everything is derivative, after all.
Additionally, there will always be those that ride coattails for scraps rather than go to the effort themselves, but no one questions the shark’s process because of the lamprey’s tendencies. 🤙🏼
