You’ve Been Challenged! (AI Discussion) (Patreon)

Between Champions and Pokopia, I’ve been in a huge Pokemon mood lately! I’ve got a few of these “Trainers” I’d like to try and get together in Pixel art style so I’ll be working in the background to figure out how to draw in that style. I’ve heard you can do it pretty easily with ProCreate or other actual Pixel art drawing apps, so I’ll be looking into those.

<<TOTAL TONE SHIFT, ACTIVATE!>>

As many of you may have seen in the group chat, I had initially put these through an AI Filter app that turned them into Pixel art. But it changed a lot more than just the style, it added details, improved shading, put a weird filter on it… a bit of a mess. But the biggest failing is my own.

Since AI really picked up steam last year, I have been trying to find what is an appropriate use of it, if anything. I was working on the image “Confession” that some of you might remember. It was initially an illustrative morph, like I use to do on Instagram. But with a lot of back and forth with the client, they suggested I use an AI model as the morph background and go from there. That felt… off, but I agreed and morphed the AI image. I wanted so bad to get the new layered art style right, I wanted to have a reference with this perfect church light effect. This was unacceptable.

I don’t know if anyone has listened to the song “Miyazaki” by Paris Paloma, but it’s inspired by Miyazaki’s complete and utter hatred of AI. He stated that art is inherently human. And that’s been stuck with me the last few weeks. While I thought the Pokemon trainer images were just a fun little experiment, it really betrays the point of being an artist. It stole the style from someone else, and put an inhuman product out. I should have learned the art style, I should have put in the work.

Here’s the headline: “From this point forward, there will be not a single pixel of AI generated content in my artwork.”

And I want to clarify to anyone concerned: Unless specifically discussed with the client, I have never used AI for a commission.

For those who left the Patreon due to the use of AI, I don’t blame you for a second and I respect your choice.

Thank you everyone for your support the last few years. I owe you all so much, and I can’t and won’t risk betraying the trust you’ve put in me like this again.