The other day I was thinking about how AI art has already changed, or maybe defaced would be a better word, the internet. Youtube and Deviantart are awash in it. It’s all over social media, but I’ve noticed something about it that made me think a little deeper. Access to AI tools is still basically dependent upon the user having money. Every change in industry that has happened in my lifetime has worked essentially the same way. The people who already have resources get to use all the new things while everyone else lags behind. It took me a decade to get the tools that my peers were using day one even in this sad little corner of art. This next thing is going to work the same way. Everyone else will be way ahead of the game while people like me are left behind to fight over scraps. It’s not as big a deal for me since I carved out a little chunk of the internet for myself over time, but the general principle is the same.
When I started the drawing area I used was the size of a postcard. It was also not a screen, so there was a disconnect from my hand to my eyes. When I got the first drawscreen I moved up the size of a sheet of paper and drawing directly on the screen. That was quite an upgrade. All that time I was using a stolen copy of Photoshop that crashed regularly. After several years I moved on to the first Microsoft Surface, which was a refurb. The screen size stayed the same but the screen was much better, plus it was portable. I eventually had to stick a USB fan to the back of it to mitigate the overheating it did. My hand was always freezing cold unless the room itself was too hot. I also moved on to Manga Studio for my art program, which I bought legally. It’s called Clip Studio Paint now. The best thing about CSP is that it’s extremely stable. It rarely stresses the processor as well. Since my art is very simple it suits my needs very well. Which is not to say it can’t go toe to toe with Photoshop. Rather what I make doesn’t take advantage of it the way other art would. CSP was one seventh the price of Photoshop at that time 100$ Even with my meager earnings I could afford 100$. Of course as some point I had to go from my stolen copy of PS to whatever their budget version was called. I used it for quite a while before moving to CSP. I ran my first Surface into the ground, but I held out until Microsoft made one that had a USB C port built in because it was supposed to become the new industry standard for everything. It still hasn’t really done that, but I’m glad I waited since this newest drawscreen can use my Surface to be its brain via a special kind of USBC cable. That saved me having to get a new tower just to use the new screen. That’s all pretty recent history. My art may not show it but going from the sheet of paper drawing area to this massive size has really changed things for me. I feel unchained and can work much faster. Sometimes I get pages ready a day or more in advance now so I can do other things that come up. It may not seem like much but it means I don’t spend all my time when I’m stuck doing some other thing thinking about the work I need to be doing. It’s been a very long road to get here. Now the next thing has come along and I wonder how far behind I’ll be when all the other artists are secretly using AI to do their work because they are ashamed to admit they’ve been doing it. I’ll give you that some artists will hold the line against AI for a while. Some of them may even stay principled on the matter till the end of their careers, but the artists that are always swooping in to get all the money they can will be using AI as much as they can without being caught. It’s already happening at companies like Wizards Of The Coast, and by extension Hasbro, and it’s been going on since the first time AI came into the space. Hollywood will lean heavily into AI, but it won’t democratize anything there. People with money will always stop that from happening, just like they did with the internet.

Kind of a gloomy line of thought, but there’s no point in pretending it isn’t happening. In any case I hope your week gets off to a nice start. I will be back with more hand crafted, artisanal, comic on Wednesday. Until then, dig a little hole for your feet to go in.

2990 The Lesson.

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