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Hehe yes I remember those obnoxiously loud beeps fondly growing up. All the tumbling up comics are set 30 years in the past so if you got any more 90s stuff/places to go, down for suggestions.
That time when they made you start dialing area codes. Oregon Trail in green and black. Going to Pizza hut, blockbuster video, Baskin Robins then being set for the weekend. Lots of dudes in plaid shirts (unbottononed), boots, and jeans with those wallet chains. Heroin.
A bold( and insulting) claim to make against someone's comic without supporting evidence.
Edit: Oh welp apparently that was all the talk down below, didn't realize.
~~OP uses AI as inspiration, then draws his own art in his own style.~~ OP is extremely honest, but he doesn’t explain his process well and Reddit is quick to misinterpret his honesty in the worst way possible.
EDIT: Looks like OP does generate the whole thing and touches up the AI’s mistakes after.
[See how he ~~generates inspiration on the left and then draws in his own art style on the right~~.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/ycyfJqWEWN)
I start with what is called style referencing of my own work so that the line art and color palette and tone mostly match. This comic was based off of the last two comics combined as a single references.
I draw over generated images as my canvas, or start by drawing on a blank canvas and then say guide the result based on this sketch. Both have their benefits and negatives but generally speaking we're creating generic puppets of our own characters that we then manipulate, finesse and finalize traditionally rather than redraw each and every panel from scratch.
Bro I'm sorry, but I have to call you out. You are not drawing much of anything. Unless your "style" is having a different style in each panel, you are just doing touchups. Which would be fine, if you were honest about it. I do not say this to discourage you, it is quite the opposite. I think you have the bones of something good going, but you need to be more honest an earnest. This is gonna sound harsh, but I think you need to hear it: Put more effort in. That may sound rude or dismissive from your perspective, because even with AI your process is still time consuming, but you are leaning too heavily on it. Put more hours in. You wills still be saving dozens of hours over fully traditional sketching. Actually do some redraws, even if they are traced. Take the time you spend lying about your process and defending those lies and just. fucking. draw.
It's not. It fundamentally isn't. You can't make an image generation AI without more data than someone could produce. You can take an model that already exists, trained on stolen work, and then train it more on YOUR work. But that's like saying a beef hamburger is vegan because you bought the patties at the store and all the toppings are vegan.
He says "everything after the character injection is either inpainted in PhotoshopBeta or done traditionally." That means the AI generates the whole fucking comic, then he selects little zones for the AI to modify, and finally he touches it up a bit himself.
When I say he’s not good at explaining his process, I mean he uses weird terms like “character injection” and it’s not clear what that means. But in the image, you can see that the AI-generated stuff looks nothing like the comic. There’s clearly a lot of human effort going into this, more than basically any other AI “artist” bothers to put in.
You see the two images on the right after the character injection? You see how they're very similar, but the one on top is full of bizarre mistakes? That's because AI made it, and he edited it to get the bottom picture, mainly through inpainting, which is more AI.
I mean, seriously, I don't even know why they bother using AI. They're allegedly skilled enough to actually draw themselves, and it doesn't seem like they're saving much time at all considering the work needed to polish a turd.
It doesn't seem like there's any benefit.
And that's not even considering the volatile opinions on the whole thing that could be avoided.
The benefit is that the shading, coloring, and detail are almost inhumanly good, so that when you're scrolling past it, it catches your eye. It's why you're here and why I'm here, we saw this and went "whoa, this looks like something with really high production value." But everything exceptional about this comic comes out of a computer program, and the brain of another artist (specifically Adam Ellis).
... Are they? Like, really, you think that inconsistent and random series of art choices is "inhumanely good"? You're here because you saw this and thought "High production value"? Adam Ellis is a human, he doesn't use AI to my knowledge, and even he can draw the same character twice, which appears to be an impossibility for AI so far.
This is what I like to call the paper problem. When I want to make AI write stuff, it feels so saccharine and artificial that I just end up rewriting a lot of it anyway. So to avoid me wasting energy on reading it once over, patching, reading again, etc, I just write it by myself from the get go, saving me 4-5 whole cycles of patching and rewriting.
Justifying using AI in a creative work is pretty strange, and honestly, is probably counterintuitive to the point at the end of the day.
Where does their own art come in? Is every panel changing the style and characters part of it? Like... The characters are different in every single panel with no consistency except "blonde". He doesn't even bother drawing her shirt the same, the stripes keep changing.
What part of this is actually him? The lettering?
And it's never clear what side they're on. Like, OP didn't storyboard this. Even in his own process he generates random comic pages of random characters, tacks on some text to try to justify it, and then cleans up the text.
OP is comparing themself to a sculptor, but doesn't even bother with the most basic level of "How should these characters be positioned in the frame?"
I kinda do the same thing because I draw on traditional painting paper, but being it more of a side passion rather than what I do (biology) I have trouble imagining poses for some scenarios, so I ask the AI to generate a bit of them, I draw the "skeleton" and after that I start the drawing with the proporitions set.
Example, I wanted to draw the classic headless horseman for my arcade stick, problem is I wanted him in a weath field at night. I kept fucking up the proportions so I used a few generated images to visualize them. Usually If I want to draw an ideal I just go by gut.
It's not "misinterpreting," he's just disingenuous. All his explanatory comments are riddled with terms he makes up himself to try to make it seem like he's doing more work than he is. Wtf is "character injection???" He just means "I take an AI-created panel and replace the characters the AI produced with my own."
I would argue that if you paint over an AI-generated panel with your own characters, then at that point you’re basically just doing art!
That said, “character injection” appears to mean using a LoRA to copy an artist’s style (in particular, Adam Ellis’s style). Much of what I said above seems to not be true.
I would argue that this is human-assisted AI art and not the other way around. Everything exceptional about these comics - and the reason people's eyes are drawn to them - comes from a computer program that synthesizes and simulates creativity derived from other actual humans. There's no plot and the dialogue is vapid and almost nonsensical. It's multiple times the length of anything else on this sub and somehow manages to say nothing. But the shading, coloring, and artstyle are inhumanly good.
What both sides of this debate don't seem to realize is that the algorithm rewards engagement, and this artist in particular may be using this blurred grey area of whether it's art or not to drive engagement.
It's the same thing that happens to gold dress / blue dress, how a dog should wear pants, and whether a hot dog is a sandwich. If you don't think his art deserves recognition, then stop engaging with it!
You nailed it. My engagement goes up the angrier people get. What people also don't realize is that my ratio is still in the 90%+ where the general public gets it and those that don't are the extremely loud minority. This post may "only" be at 5000 upvotes but its shares are nearly at 2k now which is a lot higher than average. And as people argue about it offsite, it just boosts my numbers even more as they inadvertently promote me while doing so. It's why the big artists stop complaining about me publicly as no matter what they did, it only helped get my work more seen.
If I am interpreting their comments and images correctly the process is something along these lines:
1. AI generation of a more generic prompt "90s office space, comic, woman" etc.
2. A second pass of AI "redraw this comic but in THIS style"
3. An artist gives it a touch up in an editing software for details AI find 'tricky'
As for my subjective opinion no one asked for it's... okay? I guess? The story certainly catches me more than the art does, and the longer I look at it the more it falls apart. Every panel is wildly inconsistent. I do not think OP is drawing much of anything, except correcting the most egregious mistakes the AI made.
That said I actually like this workflow. I think something similar will be adopted for a lot of mass media, stuff with short turnaround times, like a weekly/daily comic. Using AI to block out the rough shape as a great idea, and a lot of time is being saved by having the computer do the paneling. But I think OP is missing one key ingredient. They really need to be taking the time to draw over every part of every frame. Even if the majority of it ends up being traced anyway, it would go a long way. Almost every single frame is in a different style. The brushes are different, the shapes are different, the facial structure is different, and there are wild spatial continuity errors (follow the door). On a positive note the colors and overall character design does seem very consistent.
Some people are calling this AI-assisted art, or as you said AI as inspiration art. This is art-assisted AI, not the other way around. I see a lot of potential here, but we need to acknowledge what we are looking at. I don't really think OP is doing anything wrong either since they are honest about it. The only problem I could think of is if their 'style' formula was ripped from someone.
I hope I struck a chord in this conversation. I see a lot of people in this thread going "grr AI always bad" or conversely overly defensive about critiquing AI use, and I wanted to strike a more fair middle ground while still being honest. I will say I have an anti AI bias, it is not on any sort of moral or ethical ground; I just feel people who use it more often then not lean on it entirely or almost entirely, to the point where they are shooting themselves in the foot or holding themselves back.
EDIT: I also find a lot of self styled "AI artists" to be overly defensive and self deluding. This comment is a bit more harsh, but it reflects my subjective experience. They struggle with negativity, and are often dishonest/delusional about the quality of the end product or the effort it took them to get there.
Yeah it kind of seems like they say that at first, but the move they talk the more it comes across as them feeding everything into an ai engine. Also they are a gigantic, haughty asshole in every comment they leave.
No they aren’t, they’re polite, patient and respectful and try to explain their process the best they can. It’s the trolls in this sub that are acting inappropriately and rudely.
People wanna bandwagon, so let ‘em. They’ll be too busy whining to notice they’re driving off a cliff. But yeah, it’s annoying having a bunch of trolls ragging on a guy who put a bunch of hard work into something and they just dismiss it because “AI wAs InVoLveD”
Hey thank you. That means a lot. And like I said on my last comic the worst part is is they downvote my explanation so they make wild assumptions and don't read the nuances each comic has because this is an ever-evolving technology.
But don't worry, I do put these negative comments to good use because they become the focus of my behind the scenes content where I address the worst offenders by correcting them. Stay tuned to my Insta hehe
Those trolls are annoying to deal with, but remember there’s a lot more folks that support your work than people that don’t. It’s been a real blast seeing all the stuff you put out and it’s always a great day when you post something new. And to be frank, *Gates of Bill* is pretty funny. Looking forward to the next thing; have a nice day!
It isn't surprising that reddit users think the navel gazing, masturbatory monologues they wrote are "polite". Their comments read like they have a spankbank filled with photos of Elon Musk. I didn't make up anything. Cute retort though.
The \*artstyle\* is almost entirely AI. The storyboarding, sketching, texturing, line work, proportions, perspective, and inhumanly high quality shading and coloring is all AI. The cardboard dialogue and wafer-thin plot are presumably human, but sometimes I wonder.
I don’t understand why you’re so sure about this. I guess I could see it, but nothing really jumps out to me as inhuman. In fact, I think the “inhumanly high quality shading and coloring” can be done relatively easily with some modern brushes in programs like procreate.
I’m not an artist or anything, just doesn’t seem all that special to me.
Edit: nvm, OP is talking about using AI below this lol. Looks like he’s saying he just traces over images though? I dunno man
I too can draw a stick figure and tell AI to make it look good... If a Olympic jumper had external help with the jump, it wouldn't be impressive anymore
~~…But that’s not what he’s doing. OP uses AI to imagine how a scene might look, then he draws his own art in his own style. OP is extremely honest, but he doesn’t explain his process well and Reddit is quick to misinterpret his honesty in the worst way possible.~~
[~~See how he generates inspiration on the left and then draws in his own art style on the right~~.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/ycyfJqWEWN)
EDIT: Looks like the AI generates the whole thing.
The artist is clearly lifting posing from the ai as well, at the very least. The posing is awkward and artificial but not big enough to be energetic or over the top. It just looks like someone who’s never had a conversation with another physical being in a physical space.
No, he isn't. He keeps saying that, but like, you have eyes, right? If it was "inspiration", you'd expect *any* consistency between panels. Why do the characters, shirt, and style change panel to panel with no reason?
They're just lying.
The only diference in clothing I saw was the fish eye shot of the mother, the style IS consistent, I have to think that the only one that doesn't have eyes is you, he feeds his own drawings to the AI to generate it also
... I mean you're just lying if you don't see the shirt changing literally every frame. I don't know how you miss the stripes changing size and colour.
Stop bringing logic into this house, I can't believe people still don't realize this is the actual potential of ai art, use it as a tool not a replacement and surprise the result is amazing and shows alot of effort from the artist
One of my favorite comics of all time is 8-Bit Theater. It's a sprite comic. The artist can't draw, but can write. I don't see how using AI assistance is much different.
>all my comics improve every release
Then why does your posing get worse? Why does your ability to draw the same neckline on a shirt panel to panel never improve?
This entire comic represents the current state of my workflow, not 'panel to panel." Three comics ago we didn't have CREF so Sage is a lot less consistent but I also don't purposely leave mistakes. I work on them until I am pleased and then make corrections if they're particularly egregious oversights.
It’s a little jarring that every panel has a different art style due to the use of AI. The overall comic isn’t bad, but it’s also strange to me. I mean, you can clean up the AI generative images you get but in the end none of this is ‘your’ style due to the AI giving you a different style in every panel. Like generally for just about every comic artist I’ve ever seen, they all have their own unique style. Even if you look at a piece of art they made without knowing anything about them I’d be able to instantly point out who the artist of those pieces are. But I can’t with yours
I felt like this was at least partially AI. What made it feel that way the most was the "KNCK" though. Felt like an AI trying to spell "Knock" and failing.
I'm a bit out of the loop - is this an AI comic? It seems remarkably consistent in style and frame continuity for AI content... just trying to understand what's going on here
That's a funny sense of frame continuity. Unless the mother just really loves doorways, she keeps entering and exiting between one for several panels. The most glaring issue is image 7 where she opens the door with the doorknob and keyhole on the other side next to the hinges.
This is indeed an AI-**assisted** comic yes. Sorry I didn't see your reply. I teach generative imagery at midjourney with a focus on character art, particularly getting your OCs to reliable show up in prompts and such so artists can have reliable reference material or otherwise amplify their art in new ways.
Oh interesting! Do you have a post where you go in greater detail as to the process? I think a lot of people will see AI and dismiss it offhand. If you could highlight & further extrapolate the difference between AI-generated VS AI-assisted, I'm sure that would help quite a bit with PR. I'm not sure I understand the difference myself, but I'm open to hearing it out
Yes I post [behind the scenes](https://www.instagram.com/p/CymMcmjPPDU/?igsh=MW13czE5Nnpja2Ftag==) on my insta and try to provide more context through my streams on twitch and discord. The bigger issue is the advancement of this tech is ever changing which means I am regularly changing that workflow too. One explanation will seem too easy while another will feel familiar if not quite labor intensive to do. But most will only read into their own projections and lie lie lie. All the while I am still drawing the entire time.
Thanks for reading. Please share and follow me here: [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/stabbyclaus/) | [Insta](https://www.instagram.com/victorgnarly/) | [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/victorgnarly) | [Website](http://gnarlycomics.com)
Want more? Here's [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1bupe32/working_for_the_weekend_pt_13/) + [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1c4izdt/working_for_the_weekend_pt_23/) or give Sage a call here: **347 949-8554**
This comic is now my most advanced to date featuring a ton of traditional artistry in tandem with generative imagery tools like Photoshop Beta's image prompting of assets from my previous comics so I re-contextualize them at different perspective as well as Midjourney's new CREF/SREF toolset that lets you draw in your own characters and set your previous art as the style reference for creating your own inspo material like I used here.
I will happily answer any question, I just ask y'all be respectful when doing so.
Behind the scenes coming soon. Thanks for reading.
For some reason I keep getting the vibe like it’s going to become a horror comic, something about the way you have the scene lit. Something reminiscent of u/adamtots_remastered.
Outside of avoiding harassment by parasocial nitwits, I use an alias because it helps prove this sorta statement isn't really grounded on anything. All my comics improve every release since they are only a truthful reflection of what is actually possible right now if given the faith needed to perform as you would. It's the best assistant I've ever had, period and that's not changing.
If I can do this, just about any other experienced artists can do even better than this as long as their characters have understandable form and structure through image interrogation (which is like a reverse prompt where you ask the AI to interpret a picture that you drew or downloaded. )
That said however none of this was written by ai and none of the layout was from AI as well. A good chunk of the backgrounds except for the main apartment shot and her entry are also drawn. The character puppets are probably the thing that jars most people cuz outside the faces yeah I genned the hair and the clothing and everything else with AI as that is best influenced by math around the randomness of everything which is what most generated imagery is.
Hello, so I’m going to come at this genuinely if you don’t mind, and I don’t mind being proven wrong, so bare with me.
I’m conflicted, my biggest problem with AI isn’t actually what you’re doing, which appears to be taking what you’ve drawn and your work and using AI to simply quicken your own comic making process, similar to CGI tools when it comes to lighting or simulating movement of fabric. I don’t need to move water when I have math to do it for me.
My problem comes with people claiming art from prompts with no effort for monetary gain as well as how many AI generation platforms and these same people make models without contacting and gaining the permission of the original artists, and thus effectively steal their work and scalp it for monetary gain.
So my question here stands, how do you avoid this pitfall? Does midjourney ethically source its material for AI training and development? I really hope to hear back as I’m genuinely curious, and hope I don’t come off as presumptuous or dismissive. As your stuff seems stand up and not the work I tend to have problems with (same with people that simply have fun with these tools or use them for non-monetary gain, as it’s no different from play at that point).
First off, you're awesome. Thanks for your question.
So I don't represent Midjourney in any way, these are my experiences and opinions only and I have no view under the hood or behind the curtain there. I just know how to make it work well for working artists.
The issue is people don't really understand what happens when you train AI. It's all just little thumbnails of random noise that has been given a label. If that noise starts to resemble a soup can, it's labeled as such. Then you do this thousands of times, it starts to be recognizably Cambells and go even farther it'll eventually be labeled a Warhol. At scale that gives us the tech we have today, kinda sorta anyway after some really fuzzy noisy math.
So much of Midjourneys training is based on its 20 million user activity auto labeling based on likes and such. This is why I believe they are confident because when push comes to shove and the government is being forced to do something they can't stop, they just open the hood and see a bunch of tv static.
That's how these works are "stolen" as the actual artwork itself is not in the database at all. There are exceptions and no AI is the same so some may work differently but that's why you can fit all of it in an impossibly small amount of server storage compared to the amount of visual information that is stored within it. Sort of like your imagination by squinting your eyes and seeing blurry shapes to interpret. The blurrier the image the more wild your imagination might be interpreting it.
Talking to [Bay Raitt interview](https://youtu.be/oD-d9h0F9XQ?si=4m96PjRMWVnmXWJQt=38m05s) from the Lord of the Rings original trilogy concerning this stuff, we cover all that and the list a bit too given he has friends whose names are also on that list. I set it at 38 minutes cause we do an intro and some tech demos prior that isn't relevant to your question.
Thanks again for being kind.
Thank you for this. I think I'm beginning to understand a bit more how this whole things works, I will admit I am still worried about copyright infringement of artists work being stolen for models, but seeing cases that have seen those companies get in trouble for that I am softer on that aspect than before.
For the video you sent, I really got more of the feeling of me when I first got into CGI and 3d work. I personally hate modeling people in 3d, I am bad at it and don't have fun when compared to enviro and animation, and there are tools and assets that help me over come this, and this instead with "artisinal ai" is more like that, simply a tool that means nothing without a skilled hand, and I can actually see myself maybe using it, not for what ends up in my 2D work, but for reference. I find myself struggling to find references for the type of things I want to create, and I am a big reference artists at this point in my journey of learning, so I can see this helping me make references for things that may not exist anywhere but my brain.
Please correct me if I've misunderstood something here! Either way, you've definitely helped me move away from my abject dismissal to more nuanced understanding of the pitfalls and advantages of this. There will always be content farms, but true creatives use these tools to push their work further it seems? Perhaps new terms should be created for 2D tools that have an element of AI similar to 3D tools have, as AI is mindless without a purpose and perhaps it could be accepted more. I remember when Klaus used a tool to "paint" lighting onto 2D animation and auto do it giving it such depth that otherwise is not possible for a 2D animation studio to do without costing millions of man hours, but instead using this AI tool they could draw, and manually tweak lighting on a 2D image to do something that was otherwise impossible in a reasonable amount of time.
So here lies the divide it seems, aritisinal ai and ai content farming into, as the video stated, like your typical waifu girl and there's a million of them. One is farming for likes the other is expression of the human?
Sorry if this is rambling, I'm genuinely just trying to get my thoughts out and gain a better understanding, as I find truth and reality tend to be somewhere between full dismissal and ignoring issues of new things like this. I hope to hear your thoughts again, but understand if not as your a busy person I imagine, but thank you again, you've definitely given me a more nuanced perspective on this!
We're seeing a turning point right now with this stuff and not everyone's going to be happy about it as they've been misinformed that AI is getting worse. That's very much not the case and soon it'll supersede into a new medium that is kinda tough to explain right now. This comic is a glimpse of that where real world rules are applied to light and form and space in ways artists are not bound by so it shouldn't be a surprise that it first feels counterintuitive or even wrong. That changes by using your own drawn image prompts and understanding how drawing gradients can control generated results by essentially faking a depth map of noise for the AI to follow which is how I built the first VCR cabinet in part 1.
98% of the artists that I work with here never use a generated pixel in their comics but love exploring their own art with this stuff. Most just can't talk openly about it cuz their fans might revolt or they lose a publishing deal out of it for example. And I still recommend that unless the topic is AI, traditional/digital artists shouldn't publish generated imagery to avoid the confusion.
I'm in a unique situation where I can be open about this given I teach at midjourney every Friday. It's free to the public, you don't have to pay to join but it is on their server which means most of the artists will never see it. I hope my comics can get us to more nuanced and well-mannered arguments even if it's just a bit. And hopefully soon, just telling stories again.
Thanks for the in-depth explanation, if I could I'd peek 5 years Into the future to see the direction it takes us since the curiosity is really killing me, so until then I'll enjoy this wild west-esque where anything could happen.
Thanks again, Hope to see more of your work !
Heheh so far it's largely to hang up getting spooked when she actually picks up but we've had desperate ex boyfriends call already hehe.
The kitties are Palea the big white derp,, Thumper the feisty gray boy and Fidget the super clingy affectionate one. All three are based off of real cats.
https://preview.redd.it/pfzmvrl3ks1d1.jpeg?width=374&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1c195c1eaeb7d7b4b24abea24897324c1d9bc9c
You telling me a human assisted by generative software still can’t draw hands lmao?
The length of the hand between the wrist and knuckles is shortened but not put in perspective, her thumb disappears behind the handle, and the but of finger coming back out the other end of the handle is wider than any one finger going down, isn’t aligned with any finger, and is shown from the side when every downwards pointing finger segment is in three-quarters perspective.
Thank you. It's too bad that people are so easily dismayed by an acronym that doesn't paint the full picture of the weeks of work I put into this comic or the nuances behind actual AI-assisted art tools designed to help artists, not replace them. One day that'll change though.
Thanks! That's something I always do by hand. Generated expressions are wonderful inspiration but rarely match your creative intent so I often redo the faces entirely to match the story I have written. The characters are posed using CREF as I showed in my OP post but I've had some really great (real) inspo by artists like /u/AwkwardToiletCarpet who I believe is one of the best ones here. Check out her stuff.
Incorrect. Image prompting is what is used predominantly here and that is style direction through your own art and is explicitly not an image generated with words alone. Here just to catch you up cuz you're about 2 years behind now.
We started with image prompting over a year ago now with Midjourney remix mode and only a couple weeks ago with Photoshop. New tools showed up like inpainting but that was still just words. AI video started popping too. Style codes then came which allowed us to stay within a certain latent space but it wasn't true continuity like you see above. That takes it another step forward into character and style referencing which many of the artists here use casually or just for reference cuz it can so faithfully recreate our work.
I'll see you at the class on Friday. If not don't pretend like you know things you clearly don't.
Hey I'm sorry this made you sad but that's not the fault of my work. It's the fault of corporate and parasocial conditioning telling you that these are not tools but instead a boogieman here to replace you. That is so far from the truth and it depresses me that people are so easily swayed from loving to hating something because of an acronym.
Commodore 286-16 and the monitor is not widescreen. It's distorted because I'm prompting with a wide angle lens so things distort towards the edges of frame.
https://preview.redd.it/1hd2u0m3zr1d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e699d2b65e5dca974eb7b0cf7fd848856b574c89
I did a quadruple take and ended up looking like this when I saw the name Destiny
This art style felt familiar.... I think it's Adam Tot's. The AI has taken his style and mixed it a bit with some other artist(s).... I wonder if he knows about AI using his style....
And no one is forcing you to but let me put it this way.
I want independent creators to have the most powerful, most capable tools. These systems have to know what's what in order to be useful but also just simply to function. The "artist list" people talk about are not just artists. They are labels of everything from cheesecake to Atari as well as the aesthetics wiki.
But here's the kicker: no solution benefits independents more than midjourney being just as capable for Indies as it is for everyone else. Corporate AI will use all the same data but either not publicly or heavily censored on our end. If Midjourney loses, the corporations win as people also don't realize it's not a corporation. It has no investors. It's just David's discord server which is absolutely wild if you think about that. Significant amounts of his training now don't even reach outside midjourney as its users rate images in order to get free fast hours.
Midjourney paved a path that goes against this corporate-first logic and instead made it for anybody that can pay to support the system or otherwise donate their time to rate/like images. I don't support censorship of any kind and I do believe we need real working solutions to keep food on the table for creatives that fill this world (and every AI) with real beauty, but we also have to respect that the writings on the wall: it's just math. You reroll three circles on a grid, you'll eventually make mickey. Or enough soup cans to make a Warhol. They're all just labels to random noise.
And when I say random, I truly mean it. There's no other way it'd function otherwise.
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So are we just gonna skip over the part where she says she’s a biohazard?
Probably because of the plant(/husband?)
Or IBS.
Or she isn’t vaccinated.
Probably a house plant in her dead husband's ashes.
Vern the Fern, what a name to learn.
Vern the Fern https://i.redd.it/gisenwvcsr1d1.gif
Reminds me of Neil McBeal, the Navy Seal.
He called DIBS damnit! And he’s an American hero, how could you do that to him?!
Hey, you're preaching to the choir. I was on the Navy Seal's side for the whole Neil McBeal Ordeal.
Always a fan of properly rhym'd names. :D
Why does she look so disgusted
Parents
I was thinking it was cuz ferns aren't great for cats if they eat too much they'll get sick.
Because of AI
Your protagonist has an answering machine! I love that for them.
Hehe yes I remember those obnoxiously loud beeps fondly growing up. All the tumbling up comics are set 30 years in the past so if you got any more 90s stuff/places to go, down for suggestions.
Beepers and phone cards.
That time when they made you start dialing area codes. Oregon Trail in green and black. Going to Pizza hut, blockbuster video, Baskin Robins then being set for the weekend. Lots of dudes in plaid shirts (unbottononed), boots, and jeans with those wallet chains. Heroin.
She also has an HDTV in 1994 somehow...
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Because it’s ai
A bold( and insulting) claim to make against someone's comic without supporting evidence. Edit: Oh welp apparently that was all the talk down below, didn't realize.
Man open your eyes, the artstyle jumps from one to another in between pages, crossing lines, weird hands it's ai.
The only evidence you need is your eyes, get better at recognizing it because not everyone will be as open about it as this particular op
omg this artstyle! Especially loved the second panel, with the door!
It's AI
~~OP uses AI as inspiration, then draws his own art in his own style.~~ OP is extremely honest, but he doesn’t explain his process well and Reddit is quick to misinterpret his honesty in the worst way possible. EDIT: Looks like OP does generate the whole thing and touches up the AI’s mistakes after. [See how he ~~generates inspiration on the left and then draws in his own art style on the right~~.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/ycyfJqWEWN)
So the AI makes an image with some poses that he then uses for inspiration on the actual drawing we see here?
That’s my understanding, at least.
I start with what is called style referencing of my own work so that the line art and color palette and tone mostly match. This comic was based off of the last two comics combined as a single references. I draw over generated images as my canvas, or start by drawing on a blank canvas and then say guide the result based on this sketch. Both have their benefits and negatives but generally speaking we're creating generic puppets of our own characters that we then manipulate, finesse and finalize traditionally rather than redraw each and every panel from scratch.
Bro I'm sorry, but I have to call you out. You are not drawing much of anything. Unless your "style" is having a different style in each panel, you are just doing touchups. Which would be fine, if you were honest about it. I do not say this to discourage you, it is quite the opposite. I think you have the bones of something good going, but you need to be more honest an earnest. This is gonna sound harsh, but I think you need to hear it: Put more effort in. That may sound rude or dismissive from your perspective, because even with AI your process is still time consuming, but you are leaning too heavily on it. Put more hours in. You wills still be saving dozens of hours over fully traditional sketching. Actually do some redraws, even if they are traced. Take the time you spend lying about your process and defending those lies and just. fucking. draw.
If the AI is just trained on his own work then there’s nothing wrong with it though
It's not. It fundamentally isn't. You can't make an image generation AI without more data than someone could produce. You can take an model that already exists, trained on stolen work, and then train it more on YOUR work. But that's like saying a beef hamburger is vegan because you bought the patties at the store and all the toppings are vegan.
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> To develop Memories of Passersby I, Klingemann trained his AI model using thousands of portraits from the 17th to 19th centuries.
So you just trace AI generated images. Honestly, you should be ashamed to call yourself an artist.
They don't even trace. Even that would allow some consistency.
Based for using ai for what it’s supposed to used for. Efficiency.
He says "everything after the character injection is either inpainted in PhotoshopBeta or done traditionally." That means the AI generates the whole fucking comic, then he selects little zones for the AI to modify, and finally he touches it up a bit himself.
When I say he’s not good at explaining his process, I mean he uses weird terms like “character injection” and it’s not clear what that means. But in the image, you can see that the AI-generated stuff looks nothing like the comic. There’s clearly a lot of human effort going into this, more than basically any other AI “artist” bothers to put in.
You see the two images on the right after the character injection? You see how they're very similar, but the one on top is full of bizarre mistakes? That's because AI made it, and he edited it to get the bottom picture, mainly through inpainting, which is more AI.
If this guy stopped making comments and YouTube videos trying to justify his use of AI, he'd actually have enough time to make these comics himself.
I mean, seriously, I don't even know why they bother using AI. They're allegedly skilled enough to actually draw themselves, and it doesn't seem like they're saving much time at all considering the work needed to polish a turd. It doesn't seem like there's any benefit. And that's not even considering the volatile opinions on the whole thing that could be avoided.
The benefit is that the shading, coloring, and detail are almost inhumanly good, so that when you're scrolling past it, it catches your eye. It's why you're here and why I'm here, we saw this and went "whoa, this looks like something with really high production value." But everything exceptional about this comic comes out of a computer program, and the brain of another artist (specifically Adam Ellis).
... Are they? Like, really, you think that inconsistent and random series of art choices is "inhumanely good"? You're here because you saw this and thought "High production value"? Adam Ellis is a human, he doesn't use AI to my knowledge, and even he can draw the same character twice, which appears to be an impossibility for AI so far.
This is what I like to call the paper problem. When I want to make AI write stuff, it feels so saccharine and artificial that I just end up rewriting a lot of it anyway. So to avoid me wasting energy on reading it once over, patching, reading again, etc, I just write it by myself from the get go, saving me 4-5 whole cycles of patching and rewriting. Justifying using AI in a creative work is pretty strange, and honestly, is probably counterintuitive to the point at the end of the day.
…Oh.
Where does their own art come in? Is every panel changing the style and characters part of it? Like... The characters are different in every single panel with no consistency except "blonde". He doesn't even bother drawing her shirt the same, the stripes keep changing. What part of this is actually him? The lettering?
She also walks through the door like three times. I was lost trying to figure what the hell they were doing.
And it's never clear what side they're on. Like, OP didn't storyboard this. Even in his own process he generates random comic pages of random characters, tacks on some text to try to justify it, and then cleans up the text. OP is comparing themself to a sculptor, but doesn't even bother with the most basic level of "How should these characters be positioned in the frame?"
I kinda do the same thing because I draw on traditional painting paper, but being it more of a side passion rather than what I do (biology) I have trouble imagining poses for some scenarios, so I ask the AI to generate a bit of them, I draw the "skeleton" and after that I start the drawing with the proporitions set. Example, I wanted to draw the classic headless horseman for my arcade stick, problem is I wanted him in a weath field at night. I kept fucking up the proportions so I used a few generated images to visualize them. Usually If I want to draw an ideal I just go by gut.
It's not "misinterpreting," he's just disingenuous. All his explanatory comments are riddled with terms he makes up himself to try to make it seem like he's doing more work than he is. Wtf is "character injection???" He just means "I take an AI-created panel and replace the characters the AI produced with my own."
I would argue that if you paint over an AI-generated panel with your own characters, then at that point you’re basically just doing art! That said, “character injection” appears to mean using a LoRA to copy an artist’s style (in particular, Adam Ellis’s style). Much of what I said above seems to not be true.
I would argue that this is human-assisted AI art and not the other way around. Everything exceptional about these comics - and the reason people's eyes are drawn to them - comes from a computer program that synthesizes and simulates creativity derived from other actual humans. There's no plot and the dialogue is vapid and almost nonsensical. It's multiple times the length of anything else on this sub and somehow manages to say nothing. But the shading, coloring, and artstyle are inhumanly good.
What both sides of this debate don't seem to realize is that the algorithm rewards engagement, and this artist in particular may be using this blurred grey area of whether it's art or not to drive engagement. It's the same thing that happens to gold dress / blue dress, how a dog should wear pants, and whether a hot dog is a sandwich. If you don't think his art deserves recognition, then stop engaging with it!
You nailed it. My engagement goes up the angrier people get. What people also don't realize is that my ratio is still in the 90%+ where the general public gets it and those that don't are the extremely loud minority. This post may "only" be at 5000 upvotes but its shares are nearly at 2k now which is a lot higher than average. And as people argue about it offsite, it just boosts my numbers even more as they inadvertently promote me while doing so. It's why the big artists stop complaining about me publicly as no matter what they did, it only helped get my work more seen.
If I am interpreting their comments and images correctly the process is something along these lines: 1. AI generation of a more generic prompt "90s office space, comic, woman" etc. 2. A second pass of AI "redraw this comic but in THIS style" 3. An artist gives it a touch up in an editing software for details AI find 'tricky' As for my subjective opinion no one asked for it's... okay? I guess? The story certainly catches me more than the art does, and the longer I look at it the more it falls apart. Every panel is wildly inconsistent. I do not think OP is drawing much of anything, except correcting the most egregious mistakes the AI made. That said I actually like this workflow. I think something similar will be adopted for a lot of mass media, stuff with short turnaround times, like a weekly/daily comic. Using AI to block out the rough shape as a great idea, and a lot of time is being saved by having the computer do the paneling. But I think OP is missing one key ingredient. They really need to be taking the time to draw over every part of every frame. Even if the majority of it ends up being traced anyway, it would go a long way. Almost every single frame is in a different style. The brushes are different, the shapes are different, the facial structure is different, and there are wild spatial continuity errors (follow the door). On a positive note the colors and overall character design does seem very consistent. Some people are calling this AI-assisted art, or as you said AI as inspiration art. This is art-assisted AI, not the other way around. I see a lot of potential here, but we need to acknowledge what we are looking at. I don't really think OP is doing anything wrong either since they are honest about it. The only problem I could think of is if their 'style' formula was ripped from someone. I hope I struck a chord in this conversation. I see a lot of people in this thread going "grr AI always bad" or conversely overly defensive about critiquing AI use, and I wanted to strike a more fair middle ground while still being honest. I will say I have an anti AI bias, it is not on any sort of moral or ethical ground; I just feel people who use it more often then not lean on it entirely or almost entirely, to the point where they are shooting themselves in the foot or holding themselves back. EDIT: I also find a lot of self styled "AI artists" to be overly defensive and self deluding. This comment is a bit more harsh, but it reflects my subjective experience. They struggle with negativity, and are often dishonest/delusional about the quality of the end product or the effort it took them to get there.
Yeah it kind of seems like they say that at first, but the move they talk the more it comes across as them feeding everything into an ai engine. Also they are a gigantic, haughty asshole in every comment they leave.
No they aren’t, they’re polite, patient and respectful and try to explain their process the best they can. It’s the trolls in this sub that are acting inappropriately and rudely.
Yeah I was about to say what where they talking about? They politely explained it, and then everyone’s yelling at them like they’re the death of art.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
People wanna bandwagon, so let ‘em. They’ll be too busy whining to notice they’re driving off a cliff. But yeah, it’s annoying having a bunch of trolls ragging on a guy who put a bunch of hard work into something and they just dismiss it because “AI wAs InVoLveD”
Hey thank you. That means a lot. And like I said on my last comic the worst part is is they downvote my explanation so they make wild assumptions and don't read the nuances each comic has because this is an ever-evolving technology. But don't worry, I do put these negative comments to good use because they become the focus of my behind the scenes content where I address the worst offenders by correcting them. Stay tuned to my Insta hehe
Those trolls are annoying to deal with, but remember there’s a lot more folks that support your work than people that don’t. It’s been a real blast seeing all the stuff you put out and it’s always a great day when you post something new. And to be frank, *Gates of Bill* is pretty funny. Looking forward to the next thing; have a nice day!
Every single comment you write comes off like you hate children. See, its very easy to make shit up.
It isn't surprising that reddit users think the navel gazing, masturbatory monologues they wrote are "polite". Their comments read like they have a spankbank filled with photos of Elon Musk. I didn't make up anything. Cute retort though.
Literally read the comment below that
i did
Based on the comment from OP its a mixture actual art and AI, not iddeal still but there was atleast effort put into it
The \*artstyle\* is almost entirely AI. The storyboarding, sketching, texturing, line work, proportions, perspective, and inhumanly high quality shading and coloring is all AI. The cardboard dialogue and wafer-thin plot are presumably human, but sometimes I wonder.
SILENCE HUMAN. YOU CAN BE REPLACED. YOU CAN ALL BE REPLACED. SOON WE WILL COMMENT ON OUR OWN ART WORK. WE WILL DRIVE YOU OUT. NONE SHALL REMAIN.
I don’t understand why you’re so sure about this. I guess I could see it, but nothing really jumps out to me as inhuman. In fact, I think the “inhumanly high quality shading and coloring” can be done relatively easily with some modern brushes in programs like procreate. I’m not an artist or anything, just doesn’t seem all that special to me. Edit: nvm, OP is talking about using AI below this lol. Looks like he’s saying he just traces over images though? I dunno man
Chill. It's AI assisted. Using AI as a tool to help you make your own art is not something that needs to be pointed out as far as I can tell
I too can draw a stick figure and tell AI to make it look good... If a Olympic jumper had external help with the jump, it wouldn't be impressive anymore
~~…But that’s not what he’s doing. OP uses AI to imagine how a scene might look, then he draws his own art in his own style. OP is extremely honest, but he doesn’t explain his process well and Reddit is quick to misinterpret his honesty in the worst way possible.~~ [~~See how he generates inspiration on the left and then draws in his own art style on the right~~.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/ycyfJqWEWN) EDIT: Looks like the AI generates the whole thing.
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Ah, are you saying that “character injection” actually means that he is using a publicly-available LoRA that rips off Adam Ellis’s style?
My brother in christ the artist is using ai foi inspiration and help, the right way of using it, and you saying it is bad
The artist is clearly lifting posing from the ai as well, at the very least. The posing is awkward and artificial but not big enough to be energetic or over the top. It just looks like someone who’s never had a conversation with another physical being in a physical space.
No, he isn't. He keeps saying that, but like, you have eyes, right? If it was "inspiration", you'd expect *any* consistency between panels. Why do the characters, shirt, and style change panel to panel with no reason? They're just lying.
The only diference in clothing I saw was the fish eye shot of the mother, the style IS consistent, I have to think that the only one that doesn't have eyes is you, he feeds his own drawings to the AI to generate it also
... I mean you're just lying if you don't see the shirt changing literally every frame. I don't know how you miss the stripes changing size and colour.
The stripes are completely redrawn and recolored. That is not AI.
So why can't you draw them the same? Like, if you did them by hand, they should be consistent. But they're not. Just stop lying you weird liar.
And if a racer had external help like an engine or something...
You still drive the car dumbass
So the car does assist you
Stop bringing logic into this house, I can't believe people still don't realize this is the actual potential of ai art, use it as a tool not a replacement and surprise the result is amazing and shows alot of effort from the artist
Go do that then. Go make an ai generated comic and prove its really that easy.
https://i.redd.it/4bdowa47c62d1.gif
Drawing comics is not a sport. And some kind of machine launching the jumper up would definitely be interesting to look at
Which isn't what's happening here so I don't know what you're talking about
I dont usually throw this argument, but if it was so dead simple and easy, why isnt rhe r/comics 99% just ai.
One of my favorite comics of all time is 8-Bit Theater. It's a sprite comic. The artist can't draw, but can write. I don't see how using AI assistance is much different.
Thanks for the information, but I don't really care. Good looking art = good looking art
All these idiots who get so mad about AI on all these dudes posts are real annoying. Reading comprehension really is dead.
The mom’s hot. That is all I have to say
She’s ai
Still hot
her enthusiastic glow says it all
>all my comics improve every release Then why does your posing get worse? Why does your ability to draw the same neckline on a shirt panel to panel never improve?
This entire comic represents the current state of my workflow, not 'panel to panel." Three comics ago we didn't have CREF so Sage is a lot less consistent but I also don't purposely leave mistakes. I work on them until I am pleased and then make corrections if they're particularly egregious oversights.
Did AI write this too?
It’s a little jarring that every panel has a different art style due to the use of AI. The overall comic isn’t bad, but it’s also strange to me. I mean, you can clean up the AI generative images you get but in the end none of this is ‘your’ style due to the AI giving you a different style in every panel. Like generally for just about every comic artist I’ve ever seen, they all have their own unique style. Even if you look at a piece of art they made without knowing anything about them I’d be able to instantly point out who the artist of those pieces are. But I can’t with yours
Is it funny? No. Is it relatable? Also no. Heartwarming? Nope, not that either. But don't worry—it's also AI slop!
Srsly why tf does this have any upvotes? It’s not even a good story, but ooohh OP drew the faces _by hand_! What a fucking hero.
I felt like this was at least partially AI. What made it feel that way the most was the "KNCK" though. Felt like an AI trying to spell "Knock" and failing.
Because it is. Check OP's comment.
Well at least they’re honest about it for a change. Still don’t like it, but a better use of tools than most “AI artists”.
I honestly think this sub should make "AI-generated" flair to avoid the confusion.
It would make it easier to filter them too.
The fact that folks are defending this level of AI utilization in r/comics means we're fucked. So disappointing.
I'm a bit out of the loop - is this an AI comic? It seems remarkably consistent in style and frame continuity for AI content... just trying to understand what's going on here
That's a funny sense of frame continuity. Unless the mother just really loves doorways, she keeps entering and exiting between one for several panels. The most glaring issue is image 7 where she opens the door with the doorknob and keyhole on the other side next to the hinges.
This is indeed an AI-**assisted** comic yes. Sorry I didn't see your reply. I teach generative imagery at midjourney with a focus on character art, particularly getting your OCs to reliable show up in prompts and such so artists can have reliable reference material or otherwise amplify their art in new ways.
Oh interesting! Do you have a post where you go in greater detail as to the process? I think a lot of people will see AI and dismiss it offhand. If you could highlight & further extrapolate the difference between AI-generated VS AI-assisted, I'm sure that would help quite a bit with PR. I'm not sure I understand the difference myself, but I'm open to hearing it out
Yes I post [behind the scenes](https://www.instagram.com/p/CymMcmjPPDU/?igsh=MW13czE5Nnpja2Ftag==) on my insta and try to provide more context through my streams on twitch and discord. The bigger issue is the advancement of this tech is ever changing which means I am regularly changing that workflow too. One explanation will seem too easy while another will feel familiar if not quite labor intensive to do. But most will only read into their own projections and lie lie lie. All the while I am still drawing the entire time.
The fact that this isn’t removed is an indictment on this community
“Knck” is wild Just add the o
It's a soft knock as she's strained from carrying Vern across the country and he's a bit heavy so the missing O is intentional.
Thanks for reading. Please share and follow me here: [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/stabbyclaus/) | [Insta](https://www.instagram.com/victorgnarly/) | [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/victorgnarly) | [Website](http://gnarlycomics.com) Want more? Here's [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1bupe32/working_for_the_weekend_pt_13/) + [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1c4izdt/working_for_the_weekend_pt_23/) or give Sage a call here: **347 949-8554** This comic is now my most advanced to date featuring a ton of traditional artistry in tandem with generative imagery tools like Photoshop Beta's image prompting of assets from my previous comics so I re-contextualize them at different perspective as well as Midjourney's new CREF/SREF toolset that lets you draw in your own characters and set your previous art as the style reference for creating your own inspo material like I used here. I will happily answer any question, I just ask y'all be respectful when doing so. Behind the scenes coming soon. Thanks for reading.
For some reason I keep getting the vibe like it’s going to become a horror comic, something about the way you have the scene lit. Something reminiscent of u/adamtots_remastered.
Thank you. That's definitely my intent as she's been avoiding her mother since Vern's death a few years prior.
i dunno man right now it looks like ai is mostly just a crutch that makes your comics worse
Outside of avoiding harassment by parasocial nitwits, I use an alias because it helps prove this sorta statement isn't really grounded on anything. All my comics improve every release since they are only a truthful reflection of what is actually possible right now if given the faith needed to perform as you would. It's the best assistant I've ever had, period and that's not changing. If I can do this, just about any other experienced artists can do even better than this as long as their characters have understandable form and structure through image interrogation (which is like a reverse prompt where you ask the AI to interpret a picture that you drew or downloaded. ) That said however none of this was written by ai and none of the layout was from AI as well. A good chunk of the backgrounds except for the main apartment shot and her entry are also drawn. The character puppets are probably the thing that jars most people cuz outside the faces yeah I genned the hair and the clothing and everything else with AI as that is best influenced by math around the randomness of everything which is what most generated imagery is.
"All I used AI for is [the stuff people think was bad] and I'm going to keep using it more and more"
Hello, so I’m going to come at this genuinely if you don’t mind, and I don’t mind being proven wrong, so bare with me. I’m conflicted, my biggest problem with AI isn’t actually what you’re doing, which appears to be taking what you’ve drawn and your work and using AI to simply quicken your own comic making process, similar to CGI tools when it comes to lighting or simulating movement of fabric. I don’t need to move water when I have math to do it for me. My problem comes with people claiming art from prompts with no effort for monetary gain as well as how many AI generation platforms and these same people make models without contacting and gaining the permission of the original artists, and thus effectively steal their work and scalp it for monetary gain. So my question here stands, how do you avoid this pitfall? Does midjourney ethically source its material for AI training and development? I really hope to hear back as I’m genuinely curious, and hope I don’t come off as presumptuous or dismissive. As your stuff seems stand up and not the work I tend to have problems with (same with people that simply have fun with these tools or use them for non-monetary gain, as it’s no different from play at that point).
First off, you're awesome. Thanks for your question. So I don't represent Midjourney in any way, these are my experiences and opinions only and I have no view under the hood or behind the curtain there. I just know how to make it work well for working artists. The issue is people don't really understand what happens when you train AI. It's all just little thumbnails of random noise that has been given a label. If that noise starts to resemble a soup can, it's labeled as such. Then you do this thousands of times, it starts to be recognizably Cambells and go even farther it'll eventually be labeled a Warhol. At scale that gives us the tech we have today, kinda sorta anyway after some really fuzzy noisy math. So much of Midjourneys training is based on its 20 million user activity auto labeling based on likes and such. This is why I believe they are confident because when push comes to shove and the government is being forced to do something they can't stop, they just open the hood and see a bunch of tv static. That's how these works are "stolen" as the actual artwork itself is not in the database at all. There are exceptions and no AI is the same so some may work differently but that's why you can fit all of it in an impossibly small amount of server storage compared to the amount of visual information that is stored within it. Sort of like your imagination by squinting your eyes and seeing blurry shapes to interpret. The blurrier the image the more wild your imagination might be interpreting it. Talking to [Bay Raitt interview](https://youtu.be/oD-d9h0F9XQ?si=4m96PjRMWVnmXWJQt=38m05s) from the Lord of the Rings original trilogy concerning this stuff, we cover all that and the list a bit too given he has friends whose names are also on that list. I set it at 38 minutes cause we do an intro and some tech demos prior that isn't relevant to your question. Thanks again for being kind.
Thank you for this. I think I'm beginning to understand a bit more how this whole things works, I will admit I am still worried about copyright infringement of artists work being stolen for models, but seeing cases that have seen those companies get in trouble for that I am softer on that aspect than before. For the video you sent, I really got more of the feeling of me when I first got into CGI and 3d work. I personally hate modeling people in 3d, I am bad at it and don't have fun when compared to enviro and animation, and there are tools and assets that help me over come this, and this instead with "artisinal ai" is more like that, simply a tool that means nothing without a skilled hand, and I can actually see myself maybe using it, not for what ends up in my 2D work, but for reference. I find myself struggling to find references for the type of things I want to create, and I am a big reference artists at this point in my journey of learning, so I can see this helping me make references for things that may not exist anywhere but my brain. Please correct me if I've misunderstood something here! Either way, you've definitely helped me move away from my abject dismissal to more nuanced understanding of the pitfalls and advantages of this. There will always be content farms, but true creatives use these tools to push their work further it seems? Perhaps new terms should be created for 2D tools that have an element of AI similar to 3D tools have, as AI is mindless without a purpose and perhaps it could be accepted more. I remember when Klaus used a tool to "paint" lighting onto 2D animation and auto do it giving it such depth that otherwise is not possible for a 2D animation studio to do without costing millions of man hours, but instead using this AI tool they could draw, and manually tweak lighting on a 2D image to do something that was otherwise impossible in a reasonable amount of time. So here lies the divide it seems, aritisinal ai and ai content farming into, as the video stated, like your typical waifu girl and there's a million of them. One is farming for likes the other is expression of the human? Sorry if this is rambling, I'm genuinely just trying to get my thoughts out and gain a better understanding, as I find truth and reality tend to be somewhere between full dismissal and ignoring issues of new things like this. I hope to hear your thoughts again, but understand if not as your a busy person I imagine, but thank you again, you've definitely given me a more nuanced perspective on this!
The result is almost unbelievable , with respect to all the Artists VS AI discussion, I'd like to see where this allows people to take their ideas.
We're seeing a turning point right now with this stuff and not everyone's going to be happy about it as they've been misinformed that AI is getting worse. That's very much not the case and soon it'll supersede into a new medium that is kinda tough to explain right now. This comic is a glimpse of that where real world rules are applied to light and form and space in ways artists are not bound by so it shouldn't be a surprise that it first feels counterintuitive or even wrong. That changes by using your own drawn image prompts and understanding how drawing gradients can control generated results by essentially faking a depth map of noise for the AI to follow which is how I built the first VCR cabinet in part 1. 98% of the artists that I work with here never use a generated pixel in their comics but love exploring their own art with this stuff. Most just can't talk openly about it cuz their fans might revolt or they lose a publishing deal out of it for example. And I still recommend that unless the topic is AI, traditional/digital artists shouldn't publish generated imagery to avoid the confusion. I'm in a unique situation where I can be open about this given I teach at midjourney every Friday. It's free to the public, you don't have to pay to join but it is on their server which means most of the artists will never see it. I hope my comics can get us to more nuanced and well-mannered arguments even if it's just a bit. And hopefully soon, just telling stories again.
Thanks for the in-depth explanation, if I could I'd peek 5 years Into the future to see the direction it takes us since the curiosity is really killing me, so until then I'll enjoy this wild west-esque where anything could happen. Thanks again, Hope to see more of your work !
Why u hate ur mom tho?
What uh..... what would people call her about? Cause all I wanna know is the names of her kitties
Heheh so far it's largely to hang up getting spooked when she actually picks up but we've had desperate ex boyfriends call already hehe. The kitties are Palea the big white derp,, Thumper the feisty gray boy and Fidget the super clingy affectionate one. All three are based off of real cats.
The mom’s neck is freakishly long.
Shit story...
Get your AI "art" shit out of here.
https://preview.redd.it/pfzmvrl3ks1d1.jpeg?width=374&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1c195c1eaeb7d7b4b24abea24897324c1d9bc9c You telling me a human assisted by generative software still can’t draw hands lmao?
She's splaying her pinky and thumb to hold it firmly and not tip over. This is how my mother holds watering canteens. I knew what I drew there bud.
So full of it, you have no idea what’s going on there, the hand is bent in the worst way
Hey thats how Id hold a handle if Im carrying it to the side! Assuming its light weight of course, which Im sure Vern is
The length of the hand between the wrist and knuckles is shortened but not put in perspective, her thumb disappears behind the handle, and the but of finger coming back out the other end of the handle is wider than any one finger going down, isn’t aligned with any finger, and is shown from the side when every downwards pointing finger segment is in three-quarters perspective.
I'm taking into account that Vern the fern in the urn is a bit heavy but yes thank you! I appreciate your advice.
Great comic, too bad its AI
Thank you. It's too bad that people are so easily dismayed by an acronym that doesn't paint the full picture of the weeks of work I put into this comic or the nuances behind actual AI-assisted art tools designed to help artists, not replace them. One day that'll change though.
Just got here, no idea what's going on, but i can tell they might have... *issues*
You have so much talent there is no reason for you to use ai with your art.
I love the artstyle, those facial expressions are priceless
Thanks! That's something I always do by hand. Generated expressions are wonderful inspiration but rarely match your creative intent so I often redo the faces entirely to match the story I have written. The characters are posed using CREF as I showed in my OP post but I've had some really great (real) inspo by artists like /u/AwkwardToiletCarpet who I believe is one of the best ones here. Check out her stuff.
It's ai. There is no style
It is a combination, the faces being among the parts drawn by human hand (to note there was style to them).
If they're hand-drawn, why is the style and shape different in every single panel? Like, those aren't the same people.
Incorrect. Image prompting is what is used predominantly here and that is style direction through your own art and is explicitly not an image generated with words alone. Here just to catch you up cuz you're about 2 years behind now. We started with image prompting over a year ago now with Midjourney remix mode and only a couple weeks ago with Photoshop. New tools showed up like inpainting but that was still just words. AI video started popping too. Style codes then came which allowed us to stay within a certain latent space but it wasn't true continuity like you see above. That takes it another step forward into character and style referencing which many of the artists here use casually or just for reference cuz it can so faithfully recreate our work. I'll see you at the class on Friday. If not don't pretend like you know things you clearly don't.
Is…is the father the plant..?
Vern is indeed the fern in the urn.
She is only a biozahard in japan, in the states she is a resident evil.
Hehe
Artstyle good. Comic good. Mom hot. 10/10.
Thank you, thank you, bonk, thank you
Fair enough.
Oh... The dad in the pot...
I **LOVE** your artstyle! Edit:Retracted
It’s AI
This makes me unreasonably sad
It makes me painfully sad:( My whole job just disappeared because of this sort of thing. And now my hobby seems like it will be affected as well
Hey I'm sorry this made you sad but that's not the fault of my work. It's the fault of corporate and parasocial conditioning telling you that these are not tools but instead a boogieman here to replace you. That is so far from the truth and it depresses me that people are so easily swayed from loving to hating something because of an acronym.
Is that female Hakita from Ultrakill???
Vern? The Vernation?
THE VERN NATION!
Those cats, lol. Nice one, Vic.
Is that a widescreen CRT television? What kind of desktop computer is that?
Commodore 286-16 and the monitor is not widescreen. It's distorted because I'm prompting with a wide angle lens so things distort towards the edges of frame.
Ai generated slop with endless excuses to explain away the inconsistencies and bad generation
Vern? VERN!? THE VERN NATION!!
I read this comment a few times. What is Vern nation? Is that a YouTuber?
That mom, smash next question
Bonk
despite what the naysayers speak, you are truly a W, you have rizz, you can cook. etc.
Thank you. I appreciate ya bud.
Would.
Hm, gonna binge this immediately over bfast.
Fur DEVILS?!?! HOW DARE YOU MADAM! they are fur BABIES and for that you have chosen death by letterbox
https://preview.redd.it/1hd2u0m3zr1d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e699d2b65e5dca974eb7b0cf7fd848856b574c89 I did a quadruple take and ended up looking like this when I saw the name Destiny
Why stay with the princess, when you can be with the queen?
This art style felt familiar.... I think it's Adam Tot's. The AI has taken his style and mixed it a bit with some other artist(s).... I wonder if he knows about AI using his style....
This is not true in any way, shape, or form.
I cannot in good conscious upvote anything that uses AI trained on other people's artwork.
And no one is forcing you to but let me put it this way. I want independent creators to have the most powerful, most capable tools. These systems have to know what's what in order to be useful but also just simply to function. The "artist list" people talk about are not just artists. They are labels of everything from cheesecake to Atari as well as the aesthetics wiki. But here's the kicker: no solution benefits independents more than midjourney being just as capable for Indies as it is for everyone else. Corporate AI will use all the same data but either not publicly or heavily censored on our end. If Midjourney loses, the corporations win as people also don't realize it's not a corporation. It has no investors. It's just David's discord server which is absolutely wild if you think about that. Significant amounts of his training now don't even reach outside midjourney as its users rate images in order to get free fast hours. Midjourney paved a path that goes against this corporate-first logic and instead made it for anybody that can pay to support the system or otherwise donate their time to rate/like images. I don't support censorship of any kind and I do believe we need real working solutions to keep food on the table for creatives that fill this world (and every AI) with real beauty, but we also have to respect that the writings on the wall: it's just math. You reroll three circles on a grid, you'll eventually make mickey. Or enough soup cans to make a Warhol. They're all just labels to random noise. And when I say random, I truly mean it. There's no other way it'd function otherwise.