“My friend and long-time cover artist has a crowdfunding campaign going for a beautiful, full-color, 100-page collection of his art. Please check it out . . .”
This is really cool, his art is beautiful, and I appreciate what both of you have to say about AI and art. Thank you for making this post to bring awareness to the project.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree with what he said, and what you said, and that is almost exactly my opinions about AI art. Sure I play with it sometimes (it's like doodles and zentangles - silly fun), but for my professional pieces it's my work all the way.
Story inspiration for one. Saw a cute little Ai picture of a mouse in a medieval cloak, all tattered at the edges, with a basket pack on her/his/its back, walking down a snowy trail with snow still falling. That inspired a short story (1/2 done) for MG (middle grade) about a little mouse person who was a healer for her village, and was poor, but had great pride in her duty to make herbs and possets up in the mountains in the summer and bring them back down to the village in the late fall, but got caught in an early snowstorm, and then ran into an enemy of the people, but who had their own problem which she decided to help with. (more story still be written).
So that is one way.
Another way is for quick composition ideas for me (I don't show these to clients). I'll play with some ideas to see what sort of things generate (it NEVER generates what I have in mind! But, sometimes I can get some extra ideas of things to add, or an angle I hadn't thought of.) I then play with those ideas with my own assets and skills and present the client with a couple of my concept art pieces, which we can build on from there.
Sometimes I think I have a weird sort of Synesthesia, where I see a picture/scene and it triggers a story, or I read a line or paragraph and it triggers a picture!
Anyway, the other thing I use it for is generating quick characters (NPCs) for personal RPGing with my hubby. I almost always change or add things to the generated character. But, as we rarely play a campaign more than a few days, it makes sense to just "doodle" up a character, as it doesn't have to mean anything, just be representational.
Which is some of my problems with it (And Wings of Pegasus on YouTube talks about the same thing, but with music and auto-tuning and such - and you see the same thing with Grammerly and ProWritingAid and other "correctors"), which is that is has no personality, no soul, there is no human touch, it just brings it back to the "law". There is no creativity in that. It is like in school where you memorize and regurgitate, and by the next semester you don't remember any of it, because you didn't LEARN it, you didn't take it into you and let it modify your soul, as you pushes, and manipulated and sanded of the rough edges and changed the tone of the paint.
When you struggle to learn a thing deeply and have given it the human touch, it stick with you. That is why the phrase "Like learning to ride a bike", sticks with people, it is a struggle that can not be done for you to actually succeed. Sure you can start with a tricycle, and then training wheels, and then one training wheel, and then a parent or sib holding the back, but eventually, they have to let go. You likely you will fall, and fall again and again until you can do it. And 40 years later, you will remember it, your body will remember it, and with just a little practice you will be able to do it again.
gAI "doodling" is the same as training wheels. And it's not completely different than the students who would trace and copy the Master's work to learn about shapes and shades and hues. You can learn some things from viewing gAI work....but you have to be careful that you don't learn the wrong things, because it lies very well. It is a Photoshop pranker of great skill (or sometimes not to great skill, 7 fingers?). So you need to study human made art, especially old works, to see the human distortions, the human reaction to those distortions, and FEEL them in your soul.
97 times out of 100 I can pick out gAI art. I can do that because I have trained myself to see beyond the pretty picture, or hear beyond the grammatically correct words.
My hope is that people will come to treasure the human made art over the gAI and give artists of all stripes their due. But, beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder, and fenced by the pocketbook of the buyer.
Those are wonderful illustrations. I hope it goes well.
They are indeed great. I too hope Manuel is able to complete this project and share his vision!
This project looks cool! Thanks for the shout out, Alex ;)
My pleasure man.
This is really cool, his art is beautiful, and I appreciate what both of you have to say about AI and art. Thank you for making this post to bring awareness to the project.
You’re welcome. At the risk of spoiling things, Manuel sent me a PDF draft of the book, and it is stunning. I’m psyched for this.
That is really exciting! How cool to have a preview!
I just backed his book. Thank you for helping to draw attention to it! Lolo is an amazing artist, and more people need to see his work!
You’re welcome. He is a fabulous artist and a good man. I hope he can get that last 50%.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree with what he said, and what you said, and that is almost exactly my opinions about AI art. Sure I play with it sometimes (it's like doodles and zentangles - silly fun), but for my professional pieces it's my work all the way.
Thanks for the comment Tiffanie. Sounds like you use AI as A tool and not THE tool. How have you found it helpful?
Story inspiration for one. Saw a cute little Ai picture of a mouse in a medieval cloak, all tattered at the edges, with a basket pack on her/his/its back, walking down a snowy trail with snow still falling. That inspired a short story (1/2 done) for MG (middle grade) about a little mouse person who was a healer for her village, and was poor, but had great pride in her duty to make herbs and possets up in the mountains in the summer and bring them back down to the village in the late fall, but got caught in an early snowstorm, and then ran into an enemy of the people, but who had their own problem which she decided to help with. (more story still be written).
So that is one way.
Another way is for quick composition ideas for me (I don't show these to clients). I'll play with some ideas to see what sort of things generate (it NEVER generates what I have in mind! But, sometimes I can get some extra ideas of things to add, or an angle I hadn't thought of.) I then play with those ideas with my own assets and skills and present the client with a couple of my concept art pieces, which we can build on from there.
Sometimes I think I have a weird sort of Synesthesia, where I see a picture/scene and it triggers a story, or I read a line or paragraph and it triggers a picture!
Anyway, the other thing I use it for is generating quick characters (NPCs) for personal RPGing with my hubby. I almost always change or add things to the generated character. But, as we rarely play a campaign more than a few days, it makes sense to just "doodle" up a character, as it doesn't have to mean anything, just be representational.
Which is some of my problems with it (And Wings of Pegasus on YouTube talks about the same thing, but with music and auto-tuning and such - and you see the same thing with Grammerly and ProWritingAid and other "correctors"), which is that is has no personality, no soul, there is no human touch, it just brings it back to the "law". There is no creativity in that. It is like in school where you memorize and regurgitate, and by the next semester you don't remember any of it, because you didn't LEARN it, you didn't take it into you and let it modify your soul, as you pushes, and manipulated and sanded of the rough edges and changed the tone of the paint.
When you struggle to learn a thing deeply and have given it the human touch, it stick with you. That is why the phrase "Like learning to ride a bike", sticks with people, it is a struggle that can not be done for you to actually succeed. Sure you can start with a tricycle, and then training wheels, and then one training wheel, and then a parent or sib holding the back, but eventually, they have to let go. You likely you will fall, and fall again and again until you can do it. And 40 years later, you will remember it, your body will remember it, and with just a little practice you will be able to do it again.
gAI "doodling" is the same as training wheels. And it's not completely different than the students who would trace and copy the Master's work to learn about shapes and shades and hues. You can learn some things from viewing gAI work....but you have to be careful that you don't learn the wrong things, because it lies very well. It is a Photoshop pranker of great skill (or sometimes not to great skill, 7 fingers?). So you need to study human made art, especially old works, to see the human distortions, the human reaction to those distortions, and FEEL them in your soul.
97 times out of 100 I can pick out gAI art. I can do that because I have trained myself to see beyond the pretty picture, or hear beyond the grammatically correct words.
My hope is that people will come to treasure the human made art over the gAI and give artists of all stripes their due. But, beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder, and fenced by the pocketbook of the buyer.
Really cool use of AI!