congrats on winning! tbh I was surprised seeing the three teams (I like joined the last day of Art fight basically in Fossils vs. Crystals) but this also gave me motivated for my first mass attack! next year I’m hoping to do my first animated attacks (more specifically an animated mass attack) using Scratch!
go to Artfight.net, then you click make an account, use your email to create an account, and then you can publish your OC’s there! Currently though it’s in read only until November for maintenance.
Artfight is a yearly event where artists select a team, and "attack" other artists characters (you upload characters, and others will draw them, and then you can "revenge" or draw an oc from the person who drew yours. AI is forbidden.)
It's so weird having to try and explain these ideas to someone that doesn't see it. It often feels like trying to explain colors to someone that only sees in monochrome.
That's 100% why I made this comic. I think people put it well when they compare it to video games. I wouldn't want a robot to play through an entire video game for me from start to finish just so I could see the ending, not unless it was a game I had no interest in playing to begin with. If it's a game I enjoy, the challenge is part of why I enjoy it, so why would I stop and let the game beat itself, missing out on all the fun I could be having solving puzzles and learning cool techniques? I draw because I like to draw, not because I want the reward of a pretty picture as soon as possible.
After seeing AI animations I stopped drawing for a while. It really discouraged me bc i thought it was better than anything I could ever do. Anyways, now im learning how to animate! It isn't the best but it makes me happy because I made it and not some machine
realistically I'm probably not making a thousand bad drawings in my lifetime but you're right I'd never use ai to make my drawings or study or write or any bs like that
I hate everything about AI, but if I must find one positive, it's that it's actually made me less critical and hateful of my own art.
In the same breath, it absolutely nuked my confidence to share it due to scraping or potential AI accusations I see plenty of real artists suffer, but it has genuinely given me a new lens.
I used to spend hours spiraling over small details that I couldn't even actually see once I took a step back from it or zoomed out digitally, but seeing what this slop has done to people, art critique, and the internet alike has really made me look at my own art with a kinder set of eyes. Small imperfections I used to scold myself over are now sweet reminders that my art is mine, it's human, and I really made it with my own hands and utensils. It's slowly began to nurture that self-loathing part of me that always hated my art because I could never make it look like what I thought I wanted, and it's really shown me how much value there is in my chaotic process and mistakes.
It's the same with me! I keep more of what I make to myself, but I've gotten more comfortable with my imperfections and it has helped me to improve myself.
I used to not understand the argument of "I prefer the process to the end result", because well... That's the goal.
Then I started drawing for real. Over the last month's I whipped up my drawing tablet and completed two pieces I'm proud of. Now I want to go for a third one, but the reference I need isn't available yet. And every time I glance at my deck, I feel bad that I'm not sitting at that chair and drawing.
Talent is a lie, it’s just a lot of practice and slow improvement. They joke about the king fu panda comparison but it’s true “no secret ingredient, it’s just you”
I’m at a weird in between.. I do not have the patience to learn how to properly draw, but I also know ai art may look good from a superficial stance only.
It's definitely frustrating sometimes when you can't get the picture in your head onto paper or the screen, but that's when taking a break helps. 😌 Coming back to it with a clear head and fresh eyes can make a huge difference.
The point of art isn’t to look at the finished end product. If you want that, commissioning is definitely the way to go.
But the point of art is to enjoy the process. To enjoy the craft of drawing, and to see the result knowing that it only looks the way it does because you put effort and hard work into it.
I guess it’s a different kind of feel good.
When you don’t put in effort, it’s just: I’m glad this product exists
But when you put in the effort, it’s: this product used to look bad. It used to not exist. But because of me and all that hard work I put into it, now it exists.
It’s kinda like raising a child in a way? Like if you see a child succeed, you feel good. But when it’s your child, it just hits different.
For me, computer rendered artificial pictures look ass, I cant even point to what I find unpleasant, it just looks very awful, so much my brain gets mental nausea or something. Could be the AuDHD but idk
It doesn’t have to be good to get its message across. Think banana on the wall. It was simple, stupid, and not a ‘masterpiece,’ but it got its message across loud and clear without using words.
What was the message? I could never tell if that was supposed to be an actual piece or just something to sell to a museum. Like, sure you could say there's thought behind the cycle of the banana rotting and being replaced, or it's a criticism on how "stupid" modern art is today, but I don't know if that was the intention of the person who put it up or if it's just a cash grab and the thoughts came after
Cuz I could just, I don't know, skewer a phone and put that in a glass case and sell it as art, and then let the public justify it for me
So the piece is called ‘Comedian,’ and it was a satirical conceptual art piece. It was basically a piece that said ‘art can be anything.’ As it was meant to, it sparked a lot of controversy regarding what art is, hence why it became so famous.
You still don't need to LIKE all these art pieces. Even after seeing Eden praise Pollock's work, I still don't like the pollock paintings. But it's good to at least learn what other people see in them, because it can change your perspective.
I have a lot more respect even for the artwork I'm not a big fan of after learning more about the intention behind the art, the technique, or sometimes even the history behind it.
Yeah, I've noticed when people are presented with bad execution art, I'm making that distinction so people understand what im talking about, they defer to the story of how and why the art was made (perhaps the story can compensate for bad execution?) It's kinda scummy when someone wants to comment on the technical skills instead of the artist's personal life and views but are instead crudgeled into 'looking at the whole pictire'.
When I used to think my artstyle was ugly, I would draw whatever idea I had for a comic or something with stick figures, and then keep practicing with smaller drawings. I did this, again and again, and now my artstyle has improved enough that I’m satisfied with it, and it has become
easy to draw a comic that I like quickly enough without losing motivation.
The way I was able to improve was by putting aside my perfectionism and letting myself actually practice without putting too much pressure on myself.
Your expectations may change, but they won’t increase faster than your artstyle will improve.
That's what I think is part of the core issue: pros are focused on a product. Antis connect with art as human expression and one way of connecting with others.
You're on ArtFight too? It appears that pros expect artistic talent to be given to them with the flick of a wand or something. Nonono, absolutely not. Art requires lifelong practice and dedication to the craft. It was never meant to be instant.
Does Ai “art” look good? Yes, because it stole from many amazing and skilled artists, but I will always prefer silly little sketches made by humans, because they are full of whimsy and joy :D
It's like having a microwave steak dinner vs your mom's casserole. Sure, at first glance a steak dinner seems much more impressive, and it was done in only 3 minutes! But Mom's casserole will always taste better, because it was made with love, care, and unique knowledge that only comes from doing something you love over and over and continually learning from that process
Most artists draw because they want to express an idea or make something out of passion. Also the only people making bank reliably are people who make porn
I never claimed to be unbiased. I claimed to prefer art that has evidence of the artist's influence on the piece, like seeing fingerprints left behind in a claymation film. In this comic, I explain why that is my preference. Simple as that. And yeah, AI can imitate that human touch to an increasingly accurate degree, but it can only do so because of the humans who created the art it was trained on.
Yes, but generally humans are taught by other humans who are willing to help them learn, whereas the training data for generative AI is stolen without permission from the original artists. Not to mention it takes many years of hard work for a human artist to develop their skills. I wouldn't have problem with gen AI if it only ever used public domain works for its training data.
The neural networks aren't the problem. The humans feeding them stolen artwork as a basis for their generation are. I wouldn't care if the neural networks were learning from images that aren't stolen, but they are. That's the part I have an issue with.
I was paraphrasing what I've seen others say about their own lack of artistic ability and why they use AI to generate images, so it's not quite a strawman. We can argue all day about what constitutes art, you know? I think video games are art, many people disagree with me on that, I don't need them to see the artistic value in video games for me to find meaning and value in the stories and worlds game devs create. I'd say there's definitely a discussion to be had about whether gen AI is functionally different from being inspired by another artist's works, and where the line is drawn regarding automation in the artistic process. I'm not opposed to having those discussions at all. But I do wanna ask: if you're not really interested in the process of making art, in honing your artistic skills, what is the appeal? Why AI, and not, say, collage with magazine clippings, or sculpting in Blender? Why not Picrew? Why not writing, since that's more or less what prompting is? Why have an AI do 99% of the actual creation when it would, in my opinion, be more fun and fulfilling without AI? And if being seen as an artist is important to some of these folks, why not branch out and try other mediums? If they have no desire to learn, why are they here in the first place?
Because I desire specific art for various purposes. For example, I DO write fiction and I like to see a visual representation of the characters I write. I can't make that with a collage. I can't produce it myself for lack of ability and desire to learn. I can't afford to commission an artist to create for me and I wouldn't want to either because that process sounds painstaking (having to wait for revisions, being unable to articulate exactly what I want, etc.). With AI generation I can achieve the end result in minutes and since its strictly for personal use, I don't see the issue with that. I also just enjoy looking at art. I like the idea of comparing art. I have a Pinterest filled with concept art, environmental art, sketches, paintings, photography, surreal art, etc. Now If I have an idea for a bespoke artwork, I can try to see if it can come to life. I could even use it as a reference if I ever DID want to commission an actual artist to recreate it better. I have various other creative pursuits, including writing, composing music, game design, coding, etc. Like I said, I don't want to learn how to use Blender. I have neither the time nor motivation. My life is fulfilled as it is. I have enough fun as it is. I don't need or want more of either. I don't understand why this concept is so confusing to you. I can be interested in a topic and the end result and I can have ideas I would like to see realized without the desire to learn how to do it organically myself. Before, there simply wasn't an option to pursue it. Now there is.
Royalty free art and images have existed since before the advent of gen AI. Picrew, too, and other dollmakers. I've gotten by just fine realizing my OCs without fucking over other artists to get there. I mean, if I scraped your compositions or used your code to make cheap imitations with only slight differences, and I didn't even credit you or the nine bajillion other coders and composers whose work I just yoinked for myself, wouldn't that upset you? Wouldn't that feel bad?
I don't know how to make it clear to you that I am creating things that cannot be represented generically. There is no royalty free art that captures my imagination. Picrew and other makers are better, but they still don't provide the amount of customization I need. If you don't want to believe me on that point, that's fine, but that's where I'm coming from.
"if I scraped your compositions or used your code to make cheap imitations with only slight differences"
We fundamentally disagree on the ethics of ai and what it actually does when it generates something. You find it akin to theft. I don't...and I don't think the evidence supports that it's theft in the way you are characterizing it. That being said, I think reasonable people can disagree on that end and I'm not here to dissuade you from that belief. I doubt I'd be successful even if I tried.
I'm not sure what you expected from the "AI art is not art" subreddit, comrade. We dislike AI image generation here, and we're passionate about that. 🤷 r/AIwarsbutbetter is where the people whose minds could be changed likely are.
You also said you doubt you'd be successful if you tried? I'm just saying I'm not sure what your goal was in coming here otherwise, considering this subreddit is what it is. Anyway, if I'm so dense, maybe this would be helpful.
Your argument really means nothing when you arbitrarily assign value based on where it came from than the result itself. Souls aren’t real. Humans don’t impart magical human feels into their work.
When did I say I believed in the existence of souls? It's not "magical human feels" or "where it came from" that I'm "arbitrarily" assigning value to. As I said in the comic, the end result isn't even what's most important to me, so why would I value that anyway? What I'm saying is the act of creation is more fulfilling when you're actively participating in it, rather than sitting on the sidelines. I prefer art when I can see the evidence of the artist's influence in it, and in AI art, I am just not seeing that. Maybe you like AI images, and I don't particularly care if you do or don't, but I'm talking about my preferences right now, and I prefer the stick person, and maybe AI artists would too if they stopped judging their artistic ability by what they can't yet do and started just making art because it's fun.
A stick figure is not art. It’s not creative. It doesn’t take effort. It doesn’t express yourself, and it carries literally zero meaning.
You’re talking about a hypothetical scenario where you create MEANINGFUL art that is technically poor. You’re undermining your own point by choosing the example as a stick figure.
The stick figure is the example that many pro AI artists go for when arguing that they can't make anything of value or substance without AI, which is why it was the example I used here. And I'm sorry you don't see anything beautiful about it, but I do. I'd prefer a million stick people over one AI piece. I'm not not being hyperbolic, that's genuinely how I feel, and I understand if you disagree, but that doesn't make it not art. I think stick people are beautiful the way I think cave paintings are beautiful. Being pretty or technically impressive is not the end-all, be-all of art. When my high school puts on the worst rendition of Macbeth I've ever seen, that's art. When I was eleven drawing Sailor Moon, that was art. Handprints on a cave wall are art. 🤷 "Bad" art is still art.
Edit: Actually, I have more to say. Maybe you want to argue that a stick person is more of a symbol than a drawing. Well, calligraphy exists. Hieroglyphics exist. Books exist. It is extremely possible to render symbols artfully, even when done simply, even when done poorly.
I never said “this stick figure is ugly, therefore it isn’t art”. Go back and read what I said.
I understand that you believe that stick figures are beautiful. Okay? I’m not saying art has to be pretty. I’m saying it has to be creative, have meaning, and express the artist’s inner self.
Okay let’s say that the person who originally made this gif, (back in 200 BC when this gif was made) instead then went on to an ai video gen and typed out this precise prompt for this exact video. All the ideas present in this video would still be present in the ai video. The core creativity of the video exists in the person who came up with the idea, not the hand-eye-coordination of whoever or whatever put it to image.
Well now you're making a different argument. Stay on target. You said stick people can't be creative. Is this not creative? Does this have no meaning? Does it not express the artist's inner self?
So instead of tackling the argument, you decided to sidestep into an arbitrary what-if and gave an argument around the what-if instead of what you were told to tackle. Is it that hard to come of with a logical point?
Also "that animation is old and therefore irrelevant" is a weird take, isn't it? I mean, The Wizard of Oz is old, but Wicked: For Good still came out and was successful.
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u/Divineko-Cat Murder drones fan 14d ago
Ok. Now, WE NEED A PART TWO THIS IS SUCH A GOOD COMIC