I spent 4-6 hours casually creating a dozen pieces of art that are better than something WOTC puts out with all the bells and whistles that I would need to publish the book and have it look amazing.  this would cost me in the realm of $500/piece for the color and detail that I spent $30/mo on. $6000 vs $30.  For my niche product that will net me dozens of dollars I'd have to be insane to spend that money on art when I can spend it on layout instead which is vastly more work and time consuming.


What I may have to do is have an artist touch up the pictures, add a few things here and there which may cost me as much to detail 12 pictures as it would to have one picture created.  All fully licensed and approved under the Midjourney CC license.


The evolution of art generation has reduced my neeed for spending a fortune and managing people who are notoriously flakey with a work ethic that rivals homeless people.  I've met 1 artist in all my years that puts out product on time and on budget. He was expensive but his work was worth it.


I will NEVER put a tagline like this in my product EVER:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/437457/Heroes-of-the-Blade

QuoteDAI'd makes use of AI for generation of content including art. We strive to make the most responsible use of AI alongside human human writing, editing, and design, to make the best use of both.

That's pandering at it's highest level.

Quote from: Summon666 on May 10, 2023, 05:14:19 AM
Horrifying AI generated film. No input but a text prompt.
https://vimeo.com/824766880

This tech will eventually be like special effects in the 80s compared to 2023. Last Starfighter -> Avatar2

Please for the love of God everyone keep David Lynch as far away from this technology as possible!

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy on May 11, 2023, 04:18:27 PM

Quote from: Summon666 on May 10, 2023, 05:14:19 AM
Horrifying AI generated film. No input but a text prompt.
https://vimeo.com/824766880

This tech will eventually be like special effects in the 80s compared to 2023. Last Starfighter -> Avatar2

Please for the love of God everyone keep David Lynch as far away from this technology as possible!

H.R. Giger.

I just published a book called Beasties: Loathsome Horrors.

The "Loathsome Horrors" name being my initial feelings as an artist about AI art. I used it as a way to deal with what could lead to the end of art as a lucrative professional career. Art directors will be reduced to curators, and low wage workers will be hired to run prompts.

The book actually came out pretty good IMHO.



https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/436818/Beasties-Loathsome-Horrors

did you do that art? Zombie Kitty.... dat cool!

Or is this AI stuff?

Greetings!

I love good art, and I appreciate talented artists.

However, I am also an entrepreneur, making efforts to launch my own company. Part of that includes seeking to hire professional or at least talented artists.

I'm sorry to say, AI art will absolutely devour and destroy artists. They are fucking done. Honestly, it isn't much of a loss. I'm sure the really elite artists will still do their thing, and they will be fine. I hope so! However, for all of the absolute LEGIONS of lazy, phony fucking twits that have the work ethic and courtesy of snails, or the pretentious elite entitlement that they *deserve* $500 dollars or more for a fucking drawing of an Orc or an Elephant Beastman, they can go get a job shoveling French Fries at McDonalds.

AI can do anything they can do at 95% efficiency and quality in *minutes*. Right now. Wen I want it, on my fucking schedule. Not waiting weeks and weeks for a fucking email, not bouncing back and forth for their fucking commissions, or their fucking schedules, whaa, whaa, whaa. Fuck them. And that's not even being certain that they even have the skill to do what you want, the right style, or if what you want is what they are deigned to be sufficiently interested in doing. I'm sorry. It is entirely too much ego, too much entitlement, and too much fuckery.

I have not been happy trying to deal with fucking "artists" in my efforts to gain suitable artwork. It has been an endless fucking train of disappointment, excuses, and sky-high expectations and entitlement.

Technology will make 85% of these artists get jobs shoveling French Fries. It won't be a loss because someone with moderate skill in dealing with the computers and AI programs can whip up what you want for a book or game in *minutes*--and when I WANT IT, ON MY SCHEDULE. The endless hassle alone in dealing with artists and the entire way in which they seek to promote and conduct business means that it will be an absolute victory for AI art to sweep them all away into something else entirely. Commercially, as a consumer, and a business, as a customer, that is all great. Most of these artists are fucking clowns. They have little sense of respect or value for the customer's time, money, and their schedule.

Technology moves along, and periodically, makes dramatic changes to entire businesses. Buggy whips? GONE. Typewriters? GONE. Telephone Operators? GONE. All of these industries were replaced or entirely transformed by technology and systems that simply made the work they performed obsolete, or entirely unnecessary. Printing is another industry that has been totally transformed by technology. It used to be far more labour intensive, and used a whole structure of machines and systems that are gone now, entirely. It sucked for the people involved, certainly. But for everyone else, it has been a huge improvement, a huge cost-reduction, and, much more efficient in every way for individual customers and businesses alike. That is the way technology goes.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Summon666 on May 12, 2023, 04:56:27 AM
did you do that art? Zombie Kitty.... dat cool!

Or is this AI stuff?

It is not either/or.

I spent countless hours perfecting my "prompting" skills, doing a lot of research, and then generating 1000's of images (literally I've racked up over 46,041 Jobs on Midjourney to date, and many more on Stable Diffusion). Then I curated the images to get it down to the best ones. Then post-processed them using Gigapixel to uprez them, and then spent hours on each one in Photoshop using my traditional art skills to take them to a finish level and get rid of as much of the weird AI artifacts as I can.

It is not an eazy-peazy solution. It is still a lot of work! And I use my art training to have an eye for what works.

Yes. This tech is going to change commercial illustrator's careers permanently. Some will adapt and survive (which is what I'm trying to do). Others will go shovel fries at McDonalds, as @SHARK put it.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on May 12, 2023, 08:36:08 PM

Quote from: Summon666 on May 12, 2023, 04:56:27 AM
did you do that art? Zombie Kitty.... dat cool!

Or is this AI stuff?

It is not either/or.

I spent countless hours perfecting my "prompting" skills, doing a lot of research, and then generating 1000's of images (literally I've racked up over 46,041 Jobs on Midjourney to date, and many more on Stable Diffusion). Then I curated the images to get it down to the best ones. Then post-processed them using Gigapixel to uprez them, and then spent hours on each one in Photoshop using my traditional art skills to take them to a finish level and get rid of as much of the weird AI artifacts as I can.

It is not an eazy-peazy solution. It is still a lot of work! And I use my art training to have an eye for what works.

Yes. This tech is going to change commercial illustrator's careers permanently. Some will adapt and survive (which is what I'm trying to do). Others will go shovel fries at McDonalds, as @SHARK put it.

Greetings!

Thor's Nads! *Laughing*--I really do wish YOU the best of success, and I hope you manage to use your art skills and embrace the technology to continue as an artist. I love art, and I think good artists have genuine talent and gifts.

I hope you can appreciate the spirit of my rant and commentary. I assure you, it is based on real experiences I have endured with artists, sad to say.

Again, I wish you all the best.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on May 12, 2023, 08:50:57 PM
I hope you can appreciate the spirit of my rant and commentary. I assure you, it is based on real experiences I have endured with artists, sad to say.
Again, I wish you all the best.

I know how flaky artists can be because I've been a flaky artist! It's not so much laziness (though it is sometimes), for some reason it is hard to make art other people ask you to do. Imagine someone tells you about a dream they had, then ask you to draw it. No matter what you do it will not match their dream. Though some illustrators are good at it. I was mediocre, but when I'm motivated I can do something pretty good.

Thanks.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on May 13, 2023, 02:47:56 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 12, 2023, 08:50:57 PM
I hope you can appreciate the spirit of my rant and commentary. I assure you, it is based on real experiences I have endured with artists, sad to say.
Again, I wish you all the best.

I know how flaky artists can be because I've been a flaky artist! It's not so much laziness (though it is sometimes), for some reason it is hard to make art other people ask you to do. Imagine someone tells you about a dream they had, then ask you to draw it. No matter what you do it will not match their dream. Though some illustrators are good at it. I was mediocre, but when I'm motivated I can do something pretty good.

Thanks.

which is 100% where AI art comes in.  Instead of a nebulous concept you have a "I like this picture but make the sword bigger and give him green eyes and a horn on his head". A world where 95% of the work is done and now it's a matter of curation instead of invention.

Or people could learn to draw their dreams, but I suppose that's asking too much of humanity.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 13, 2023, 09:22:29 AM
Or people could learn to draw their dreams, but I suppose that's asking too much of humanity.

Stupid assholes, not being born with artistic talent.

No, one can not simply learn to draw, at least not to the level people are discussing here. Don't be a troll.

Quote from: Grognard GM on May 13, 2023, 11:48:31 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 13, 2023, 09:22:29 AM
Or people could learn to draw their dreams, but I suppose that's asking too much of humanity.

Stupid assholes, not being born with artistic talent.
No, one can not simply learn to draw, at least not to the level people are discussing here. Don't be a troll.

Thanks Grognard GM. I understand why so many forums added "likes", since that's what is really needed for your post.

LIKE!

I would love to be able to get a brain implant that downloads artistic skill into my mind. Unfortunately, I suspect that by time such tech is viable, nobody will remember what artistic skills are.

What I find frustrating is that his whole debacle has led to countless amazing artists nuking their public online galleries and depriving us of their art forever. I hate that. There are so many amazing unique art pieces that I only vaguely remember which are now gone forever. Work that AI cannot replicate and probably never will.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 13, 2023, 12:53:31 PM
I would love to be able to get a brain implant that downloads artistic skill into my mind. Unfortunately, I suspect that by time such tech is viable, nobody will remember what artistic skills are.

What I find frustrating is that his whole debacle has led to countless amazing artists nuking their public online galleries and depriving us of their art forever. I hate that. There are so many amazing unique art pieces that I only vaguely remember which are now gone forever. Work that AI cannot replicate and probably never will.

Those are the same people who grew up on the playground and literally took their ball and went home.   All they are doing is hurting themsleves and their artisitic repitoire of talent and works.

Their void will be filled and then they too will be forgotten because their pride got in the way of progress.