#and should also not have their art sold to ai

[mrvelocipede]

HA HA, I will thwart the AI training because no one in the history of the world has EVER wanted art in my style, all it will do is contaminate the data, SO THERE

[genericpuff]

completely off topic but regarding something that i saw pop up in my FB feed and i need to rant about

please do not fall for this shit

nintendo is NOT anti-AI.

it's really easy for them to say they're not going to use generative AI to create their games, because this statement has nothing to do with the very real issues with AI art such as the blatant theft of artists' work, environmental impact, replacement of humans in the industry, and just flat out unethical shit that AI has been designed around

it has EVERYTHING to do with their intellectual property rights, which Nintendo is NOTORIOUS for protecting with an iron fist even at their own expense. and i'm not talking the usual sensible argument shit like "ofc Nintendo wants to protect their IP's, they're a business!" i'm talking about the fact that this is the same company that just recently did a major takedown of the vast majority of Nintendo-licensed games on Vimm's Lair which aren't even being sold legitimately anywhere anymore-

i have so many fucking bones to pick with the flaccid bootlicking anti-piracy arguments out there but basically it comes down to this:

Nintendo is not a small indie company. They are literally one of the biggest, richest, most powerful gaming companies on the planet, rivalling Disney in just how many major franchises they own and profit off of. Many of their games are cultural classics, not just through the sentimentality and nostalgia of our childhoods, but also for all the innovations they made through games like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and many others that we, within the world of gaming, owe a lot to and should be able to access and play. It's not a matter of "wanting these games for free", it's a matter of wanting to be able to access these games, period, and Nintendo is deadset on making it as difficult as possible, even when it doesn't necessarily profit from them (need I remind you that many of the games that were taken down from Vimm's Lair are NOT available through their shitty, poorly-ported emulation subscription service - plus that subscription service can be altered and/or removed at any time, regardless of what you paid for, just like the Wii Virtual Console was, meaning you do not own any of the games you're paying to play on there.)

This isn't about being "cheap" or "not wanting to pay for games". This is about media preservation and the virtue of actually owning the things we pay for. If these games were resold at official outlets for reduced prices or made more accessible through e-shops that don't close down in between console generations or drip feed the odd legacy title every few months or release crappy ports on their outdated af tech for only a few months at a time for three times the price of their original value, people would gladly pay. It's the fact that people are having to put up with all of the hoops that Nintendo has put in place to prevent them from even handing them money to play their favorite titles that even drives them to piracy to begin with, and Nintendo will gladly shut those sites down to protect their IP even when it's an IP they're no longer profiting from and aren't making active efforts to sell.

Like, I would gladly hand over a reasonable amount of money (i.e. not the cost of a brand new triple A title in 2024 which is like $80-$100 here in Canada) for Diddy Kong Racing on the Switch, but ofc it's not on the fucking online play store and even if it was, I'd have to deal with paying an overpriced subscription fee for a port of the game that would undoubtedly run WORSE than it does on my PC, and that subscription service can be taken down at any time. But Nintendo wants me to not pirate the game that's not available on their shitty subscription service because... just don't do it, pretty please??

Nintendo is not anti-AI. They would gladly use AI in place of manual labor to scour the internet and dish out DMCA's to every emulation site, archived ROM hub, fan game, and artist alley creator if they could... oh wait, they already are.

Do not fall for the virtues of anti-AI when it comes to companies like Nintendo. They are not anti-AI. They're anti-ownership. They're anti-preservation.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

The big book FAQ for Derins books

I've been asked all of these questions so very many times, so here's the answers.

Can I print out and hand bind your story?

What you do with my story in your own damn house is none of my business. Buy the ebook and hand bind it if you want (it's probably cheaper than buying the print book, and I make more money on ebook sales, so win-win). Painstakingly copy and paste and edit the chapters for free from the free online version, if you prefer. So long as you're not selling copies to people, what you do with the book when it's yours is your business.

Send me photos if you want. I've seen some rad homebound copies of my stories and I want to see more. You guys are so creative.

Can I translate your story to another language for a school assignment/personal project?

Yes.

Can I make an audio version of your story and post it online?

So long as you link back to the original text version, yes.

Where is the first TTOU book available in print?

It's available in these places. It will be available through Ingram and Amazon's various networks, so expect it to show up in more digital storefronts over the next week or so. Or your local bookstore can very likely order it in for you, if you ask them.

Will the free version of TTOU stay online?

Same as Curse Words, I will not be taking down the unedited first draft that's currently online any time soon. However, I also won't be putting any special effort into maintaining existing links to it.

If I want to give you the largest royalty cut, which version of your book should I buy?

Buy whichever version is most convenient for you. The ebook and print versions exist because readers asked for them to exist, not because I expect to make money from them.

I make the most from the ebook versions, particularly if you buy through Smashwords, but the best way to support me is through ko-fi, where you can get advance chapters for the books I'm currently writing, not through book purchasing.

Your cheapest option for the books, paperback and ebook, is through my ko-fi shop, where distributor markups can be avoided. But paperback supplies are currently very limited via this method.

What really happened at the end of Copy <|> Paste?

I said everything I want to say in the story itself.

What is [fictional character or society]'s opinion/future/history/custom with regard to --

See previous answer.

Are any of your books going to be released as audiobooks?

Probably not. Fairly compensating audiobooks readers is very expensive and I won't be making AI versions.

When will the Curse Words books be sold in print?

When the art for them is ready.

What's your opinion on [latest drama or scandal surrounding a different writer]?

This is probably the first I'm hearing of it, I have no relevant information about the issue to share with you.

Should I message you about typos found in the free online drafts of your work?

You can if you want to, but if the typo doesn't interfere with story clarity, I'm probably not going to bother with it until it's time to edit the story for print.

[elumish]

My Experience With Digital-First Royalty-Only Publishing (Part 2)

Disclaimer: just my experience, may not reflect other people's

Part 1 (What is this sort of publishing; how did I get published; what does the submission, contract, and editing process look like)

Book Release:

My [redacted] book came out in April 2024. It is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher's own website, where it is listed for a couple dollars less than on Amazon/B&N. It's available both digitally (in multiple different file formats) and for print (paperback).

I can't speak for whether this is standard across these sorts of publishers, but it probably isn't unusual. This does mean that the book can't be available on Kindle Unlimited, given how Kindle Unlimited's requirements work.

The timing for this sort of publishing is extremely fast compared to traditional or even small-press print publishing. I signed the contract in late August 2023 and sent in the final draft to my editor in late October 2023, and the book was released in late April 2024.

Book cover:

For designing my book cover, they pointed me towards where they pull stock images from and asked me to describe the sort of cover I would want, including possible stock images. They also asked for physical characteristics of my characters, which is when I realized that I had no clue what my characters look like.

The stock image website included AI art, as well as regular non-AI stock images. I specifically requested no AI art, including no AI-generated stock images. As far as I am aware, they respected that request.

Once they created one, they sent me a mock-up and asked about minor changes (typography, etc., from what I remember). I didn't have any changes. Overall, my cover looks like what I described to them, and I'm really happy with it.

Marketing:

My marketing experience with my publisher has been decidedly underwhelming. They seem to have started to revamp their marketing process right around when my book came out, so my book didn't receive/hasn't received a huge amount of marketing support from them.

What they gave me marketing-wise: a few marketing images for pre-release/post-release, including Twitter and FB header images, etc.; general marketing guidance for what I could/should be doing; a couple of mentions on their publisher Instagram post-release and a mention in their weekly newsletter

What they didn't give me marketing-wise: connection to reviewers, including sending an ARC or providing a list of reviewers that might be good to work with; marketing materials for sites like TikTok or Instragram; a meaningful amount of airtime/mention on their accounts; a large following of their own

Overall, the marketing is what is probably most like self-publishing--a huge amount of it is on me (and I am terrible at it). It will be interesting to see what their revamp brings, but they are starting from a minimal following and not a lot of previous activity on their accounts, and so they also need to build their reach to make their marketing on their accounts more effective.

Royalties/payment:

I get paid on a monthly basis through PayPal. I also receive a royalty statement that lists days, amount/type sold, etc. so I can reconcile with what they have paid me. From what I have seen this royalty statement is pretty standard.

So far, they've been prompt and haven't had issues with payments.

However, because of (among other things) their general lack of marketing, my royalty statements have been fairly low. So far (and, granted, the book came out less than 2 months ago) I have made very little money on this.

My Path Forward:

I've thought a lot about whether I will continue to do this sort of publishing. I am currently querying my "main" books, and I don't plan to publish them through this sort of publishing, even if the publisher would likely accept them.

My contract stipulates that my publisher has right of first refusal for the rest of the books in this series. I am currently writing book two, and I plan to also write a third, as I had initially discussed with them. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I don't mind working with them as a company, but I don't know if they have the processes in place for me to make money publishing with them.

One thing I will likely do is explore other romance publishers that accept unagented submissions. They have a much lower barrier of entry and they are often willing to accept books that trad publishers might not want to spend money/reputational risk on.

As such, I would likely submit to these publishers stories that I don't think traditional publishers/agents would likely to be willing to publish, including more niche subgenres and less standard lengths that are easier to publish digitally.

Why do I redact the name of my book?

Honestly because I'm a coward and because people are weird about romance, especially certain subgenres of romance. I also plan to use this account for my main agented publishing, if I ever reach that point, and I don't necessarily want those two pen names associated.

Any other questions about this sort of publishing?

[see-arcane]

I figured I should interrupt everyone's dash for some notes on current real life things.

This is a hefty one, so I'm tucking everything below:

A little good news. As of this writing, I’ve sold 74 copies of The Vampyres, in eBook and paperback! That’s 74 more than I thought I would ever sell! Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy or asked your library to grab some. Especially when I know I haven’t been the most stellar self-marketer. I can’t remember the last time I opened the septic tank formerly known as Twitter, so it’s all been down to this little corner here and a skinny appearance in Goodreads. Which means I owe any attention this short and sinister tale has received to you all and plain old word-of-mouth.

That said, thank you x100000 to you and any new readers yet to take a look. (And doubly so for those of you who go out of their way to leave comments and reviews around for me to reread ad infinitum.)

For those not in the know, all the info on The Vampyres can be found here, and all my author odds and ends can be found on my website here.

On a less heartening note…

As I’d already expected, the market for career writers is…rough. Copywriting—and writing in general—is technically a big open field (full of caveat descriptions about having to work with/teach AI programs to eventually swallow your job)! Tons of open positions! Most of which either pay you in pocket change while you’re working full time or expect you to singlehandedly run the entire marketing of a business for slightly more pocket change. Everything else is bloated with contract and/or freelance work*.

*Read: Gig economy schlock trying to pass for an actual job position with payment being a coin toss. I’ve also seen one too many listings on the job boards that are volunteer positions. Plenty of exposure to rake in though, right? Ha. Ha ha.

I’ve still been applying like clockwork, same as the rest of my fellow creators trying to get by in a field that seems to actively punish trying to be a professional in said field, and still no bites further than an interview. I have years of experience and a degree, but everyone’s chasing the same crumbs, so. Yeah. I’ve got to start padding things out.

Reminder that I do have a (barely peddled) Ko-Fi. It’s there for art commissions and chucking a few spare bucks at. Which is an increasingly big ask these days, I know. You can’t scroll two posts down without hitting someone else’s Ko-Fi, Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, et cetera. We’re drowning in arting starvists here. And although I have been asked before whether I would consider going full Freelance Storywriter on top of selling art, I’m still a little hesitant on it. I do occasionally send out story submissions and have even gotten published a few times, but I get nauseous thinking about:

1) Putting up a paywall on the scribbles that assail me like a baseball bat wielded by an unmerciful Muse. 2) Putting up a ‘Stories for Sale!’ sign only to wind up disappointing prospective buyers because I didn’t do their blorbos justice even after researching X background for the piece. 3) Getting duped into being a nonconsenting ghostwriter and discovering someone else has published my work under their own name.

So, still a bit iffy on that. I’ll chew on it. But what else is left?

Before you click the button!

Stop!

NOT YET!

Before you click, please know that I am being serious about this as something to potentially make 1) something of good quality and 2) earn more money than it loses. Looking around at the merch-making/selling options, there are fees involved with making an account just about anywhere in the online store game, give or take the price tweaking needed for shipping and manufacturing blah blah blah.

With that in mind, please do not automatically hit ‘yes’ because you want to be nice. I appreciate it, but this isn’t the same thing as the Ko-Fi where there’s no real loss in just leaving it up and drawing something once every few months. This will take new designs, another subscription to pay for, more logistics to untangle for quality and pricing and all the rest of the mess. Only hit ‘yes’ if you, personally, genuinely, would like to purchase some nefarious See Arcane wares beyond a book or a digital drawing.

[chaoskirin]

What AI Art is NOT

I keep seeing people refuting points from REAL ACTUAL ARTISTS using these talking points. So here’s a sort of FAQ of what I’ve seen.

Q: Isn’t AI Art is just a tool?

A: Tools include grids, perspective lines, rulers, apps like Sketch Up which place assets that are pre-designed and cannot be altered, et cetera. Tools are NOT: apps that draw the whole picture for you. If AI datasets were tools, then artists would also be tools. Artists aren’t tools. 

Q: AI Art isn’t stealing art. It’s just like a collage. 

A: I really want you to think about what a collage is versus the kind of art an AI dataset spits out. Are those things the same? Collages are derivative and generally fall under parody law, so long as the person creating them isn’t taking credit for the parts of the collage they didn’t photograph or draw. You cannot sell a collage of other peoples’ work without express written permission from those people. The elements of a collage are each separate and identifiable as such.

AI art is not a collage. The elements of an AI art piece are not separate and identifiable. They are combined into one single piece, where each piece cannot specifically be traced. AI art does not fit the definition of a derivative or parody work. 

Q: If someone puts their art on the internet, it’s fair game. 

A: Copyright law specifically disagrees with you on this point. 

Q: If it’s not a collage and one can’t see the pieces of the art, doesn’t that make it an original work, and therefore, it’s not theft? 

A: AI isn’t generating a new image. It’s taking pieces from many originals and “claiming” to make a new original piece. However, AI cannot generate these things without knowing what they are (IE skimming tags and allowing users to tell the AI what’s in the picture) Without the input of original artists, an AI would not be able to create anything, which is why most datasets include millions of pieces of art “scraped” (AKA stolen) from the internet. Currently, these pieces AI makes are being sold, and the owners of the datasets are charging for their use. This means that people who did not actually create the art are being paid, whereas the original artists are not. 

Q: AI art can’t replace real artists. You’re fearmongering. 

A: AI art has already replaced real artists. Shortly after Kim Jung Ji died, someone fed all his artwork into a dataset and “created” several new pieces that were almost identical to his style. Cosmopolitan magazine released a cover “drawn” by an AI and blatantly stated on the cover “and it only took 20 seconds to make.” A magazine article in The Atlantic used AI art to generate a photo of Alex Jones surrounded by papers. Someone submitted AI generated art to an art contest and won. Several anecdotal stories (not verified, but reliable) on Twitter state that small companies have fired their graphic designers or cut their work force. Commissioned artists have reported dropping sales numbers. 

Corporations (and most people) will ALWAYS favor a cheaper option. If it’s good enough, it’s usable. The Cosmo magazine cover and the article header image were TERRIBLE, and they still went to print. Everyone should know by now that corporations will ALWAYS screw people over when they’re able to. If AI art becomes acceptable and commonplace, in-house artists will be replaced. This isn’t theoretical. It is already happening. 

Q: It’s going to happen anyway. You can either embrace it or reject it. (Yes, this is real. Someone actually said this to me.) 

A: Yes... Exactly. I’m rejecting it. Without laws to protect artists, I will fight AI art whenever and wherever I can. It might be fun and convenient for you, a non-artist, but it is terrifying and heartbreaking for artists. Websites like Deviantart and Clip Studio Paint who said “well it’s going to happen anyway” should have been the first line of defense against the creep of AI art, but they failed. It can only take over if people let it. Stop letting it.

[parageist]

OPENING COMMISSIONS!!

(I know a lot of people in way more destitute scenarios offering commissions, and I am well-off without them, so please consider spending your money on someone who needs it to survive! But as a middle-class, unemployed, autistic trans girl who recently turned 18 and is expected by my parents to get a job soon to continue living here, I would desperately appreciate any sort of income possible!)

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All Prices in USD, pay via PayPal - Please pay at least 50% upfront, thank you!

-Basic lineart + coloring for a 720x480 or 480x800 panel: $10 (+$5 per extra character)

-Lineart + coloring + shading + effects + background for a 800x1280 or 1280x720 comic-page-sized drawing: $30 (+$20 per extra character)

-Purely landscape/environmental with no characters, 1280x720: $25 (though depends on the complexity)

There’s no set time or schedule for me, so it could take anywhere between a few hours and a few weeks for me to finish, depending on mental health, work, other activities, etc., but you may ask for a 50% refund if it takes me more than a month. If I am unable to finish the piece for whatever reason, I will offer a full refund. Please don’t rush me or change your instructions after I’ve started it. Thank you!

Anything you commission from me will be subject to my copyright and will be posted publicly (UNLESS IT IS NSFW), however you are allowed to also post and use it in any way UNLESS that way involves harassment, discrimination, to be directly sold or used for your own product(s), training any sort of AI models, or claiming ownership over my art.

Oh yeah and feel free to just DM me if you want a commission, though I'm not the most active at times lol

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I’ll try drawing pretty much anything, but there are some disclaimers I should make:

Things that I am not necessarily adverse to drawing, but my lack of experience in the specific subject may result in the process taking much longer and/or the result being of lesser quality than my other work: -Drawing outside of my normal artstyle -Furries -Animals -NSFW -Complex designs, vehicles, mechs

Because of this, you may request the price to be 20% off if it includes the above.

And these things are completely off the limits for obvious reasons: -Any art that is hateful or discriminatory in any way -Art made to harass someone -Fetish content -NSFW of minors, non-anthro animals, non-consensual encounters, and/or incest -Heavy gore, maggots, feces, and other disgusting stuff

Oh yeah and PLEASE DO NOT commission anything NSFW from me if you are a minor!!!!!

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!!!ALSO!!! I likely can only handle no more than 8 commissions at a time, but I will have the available slots in my bio.

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Here is a bunch of other random drawings and comic pages I've made!

I'll likely make an updated version of this later lol

Please reblog and share to help get a young artist started in their life! Any support is greatly appreciated, have a fantastic day!!

[nothorses]

I'm genuinely frustrated with the AI art debate from so many angles and most of them are people completely misunderstanding the actual problems but arguing against it anyway based on like. dumb bullshit ideas Disney peddles. and making it so easy to refute "the anti-ai art crowd" using what should be strawmans- because they are that obviously bullshit- that the real problems go completely unaddressed.

AI art could be a good thing! It could! Ethically, philosophically, whatever- it could be a great tool for learning artists, an interesting discussion piece, a natural addition to the conversation started by dadaism and Duchamp's The Urinal, a tool for people who struggle with artistic skill but still have artistic ideas that they deserve to express.

Artistic skill and artistic thought are equally valuable. Someone who picks up a skill naturally and creates breathtaking work, even if it's not really thoughtful or deep, deserves appreciation just as much as someone who has beautiful and thoughtful ideas, even if they express them using AI art instead of a paintbrush (for example).

That's not the problem here.

The problem is that AI art programs are products. They are being sold for a profit. The products contain work created by independent artisans who couldn't give their consent. Even if the products often alter the work they contain, it also is sometimes producing work that is identical, or nearly identical, to work stolen from an unconsenting artist.

I think this is about as ethical as hot topic's stolen art t-shirts and those bots on Twitter and Facebook that turn random artwork into products on some shady website. They might also be producing ugly fucking shirts with hyper-specific taglines printed in weird fonts that are, by no means, stolen work from someone else; but the stolen art they're selling is still a problem even if it's not the whole business model.

The public, free-to-use tools are honestly not as bothersome to me. The people using these programs, particularly when uninformed, also aren't really doing anything wrong.

But the companies who made and profit from some of these programs could have made this a "donate your art" or a "we'll pay you like $0.50/pic you submit to help train this" situation, and I think it's a bad precedent to set that we're cool with them just, like, grabbing whatever they want for a product they built to profit from & that isn't functionally guaranteed to change everything it produces enough that you can't recognize the stolen art in it.

and I think we should be able to have that conversation without it turning into some bullshit about The Importance Of True Artistic Skill And Suffering or whatever.

[shadyufo]

How much do you like selling on Etsy? I've been thinking about opening up a shop to sell my own taxidermy art on there. It's just that I've heard Etsy is known for shutting down shops randomly and people keep saying that Etsy's "dying"/on a downward slope. I also heard there are a lot of scammers... What are your thoughts?

Hi Anon!

My feelings about Etsy have definitely gotten sorta complicated over the last few years.

First of all, I love my little shop. I love getting to interact with so many sweet and lovely folks and I love getting to send my art and oddities all over the country. I’ve sold pieces through Etsy that have ended up in museums and classrooms, as props in movies and television shows, that have been centerpieces in peoples’ weddings, that were birthday gifts for little kids just getting into nature and science, and so many other neat and wonderful places with some really awesome people who I am forever grateful to for supporting my shop.

That said, in my opinion, Etsy is definitely not what it used to be and there are plenty of things I wish they would do differently to make the site better for sellers and buyers. I think their search feature needs a total revamp and they also need to crack down on all the sellers flooding the site with mass-produced merchandise. Their recent decision that AI-made content is totally fine by them is another serious bummer and a slap in the face to the real artists using their platform. The list goes on.

In spite of all that, if you want to open an online shop, then Etsy is still probably the best site to do it on, at least starting out. It’s a trusted, household name and they have millions of users from all around the world so you are going to be getting much more traffic than if you were just starting your own site from scratch without any sort of social media following.

You'll still likely want to grow a social media presence (if you haven't already) to help drive traffic to your site rather than rely on Etsy alone for this. A great deal of my own shop's traffic comes from Tumblr and what little I post on other social media. This is something I really should be better about as I've kinda shot myself in the foot by not utilizing them more over the years...but I just really don't like using TikTok or Instagram haha.

From what I’ve seen, vulture culture stuff-wise, Etsy mostly gets mad at folks who sell wet specimens or other more “gruesome” type of oddities and don’t blur the main listing photo or do something similar to warn folks that it could be something they might find upsetting. They also prohibit the sale of some animal parts that are perfectly legal to buy and sell provided you follow the laws around them. So if a seller was listing some of those items, while legal elsewhere, that might have gotten them in trouble with Etsy. Here's a list of what they don't allow. And here's a more specific list of their prohibited animal parts. Note bear, wolf, and zebra are on the list��it's perfectly legal to sell parts from some of these animals in some places provided you follow the laws around doing so, but Etsy doesn't allow it at all. I've had them remove listings for domestic dog and cat skulls in the past as well—the law there is in regards to selling dog and cat fur (which is illegal in the US) but Etsy seemed to think it covers bones as well which it does not.

As for scammers, don't click on suspicious links anyone sends you and watch out for people wanting to contact you outside of Etsy. Don’t swap phone numbers, email addresses, etc with people. Etsy has guides on their site on what to watch out for that it’d be good to read through.

So all of that to say that if you want to start selling your work online then I think Etsy is most likely going to be the best place to do it, at least starting out. If you want to just dip your toes in the market before opening an Etsy shop though you can always try posting a few items here or there on Instagram or one of the oddities selling groups on Facebook but in my experience at least, Etsy is still the best way to go. Then, once you build up a following, you can always start your own site or branch out beyond Etsy if you want to.

I wish you all the best, Anon! Hope you find wild success selling your work wherever you decide to do it <3

[dayseedrawz2]

I was drawing human Pomni concepts when i came up with an AU idea...

(IM MAKING ANOTHER SHOWTIME AU AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME-)

The Rescue Mission AU!!

Basically, Pomni finds a way out of the circus and is now trying to find a way to bring back the others and rule out CnA as a company for good!

This was heavily inspired by me having watched a lot more spongebob lately so Pom, Caine, and Voz have a sort of Plankton Karen and SpongeBob Dynamic in this AU

Pomni

Pomni has somehow managed to escape her digital cell! But she feels a bit bad for being to only one able to.

Plus, it does get pretty lonely in the office sometimes...

So she's made it her mission to try and bring the others back! Except it wouldn't be easy to bring back everyone...

She may have to do some digging...

(Also, like I said, I got huge Inspo from Plankton and Karen, so she's a robot engineer now-)

Voz

(Or as long-time viewers of this page know him, my showtime fankid. Yes, he has somehow made it into all my AU's now)

Voz is Pomni's test project for her attempts at bringing the others back.

He also acts as an assistant for her, aiding in other workings.

He takes the resemblance of a small child so that he doesn't seem too out of place.

Even if Pomni's boss were to find out he existed...

Caine

(Caine's lore is sorta inspired by my old Human Caine AU blog that is now the Ring-Misstress Caine blog! If you haven't checked it or Pomni's out, you should!)

Soon after her successful escape, Pomni found out she could talk to Caine through her computer and keep in contact with the others!

Upon hearing her plan, Caine was extremely ecstatic and offered to help.

After some time, they found out that the only reason Caine couldn't escape was because he had sold himself to the company and therefore became the AI he is. He was bound by contract.

This, of course, only made Pomni's resentment towards CnA grow. If only she could find a way to free him too. She couldn't let him be trapped alone forever!

Also, it'd be nice to see him in person again...

And that's all I have for the lore right now!

I will be following up with some concept art

dumps. Feel free to ask any questions!

[weaselishmcdiesel]

theres a youtube channel profiting off and lying about ai art and it's pissing me off

@/tendofarms on youtube uses ai art in the thumbnails and videos of their animal crossing compilation videos, claims it to be made by them despite also giving credit to a @/lumasi.png on instagram, who claims it's "a comission." this art is also being sold on merch on the channel's etsy account.

They haven't posted a video in 2 months but to see that they've made money through this scheme really pisses me off. Also the fact that they're attempting to decieve people by creating a fake artist on instagram who posts the ai art. They've attempted to say the art is a blend of original art made in photoshop/illustrator as well as the help of ai art. I dont believe this is true and im going to show your asses why

On their first video, they say

"my normal workflow so far has been to paint backgrounds, then get Ai to help with character design, i bring to photoshop to select my favorites, and put together something from my personal painting combined with my favorite Ai characters. Hope this clears things up :D"

The art in question:

and if you have no issues with it, here are MY issues with it

i'll pretend for a second that this person did make the backgroundand ignore the fucking surreal characters. sure. ok so what the fuck are these details. and also how did the ai manage to match your style so well? it doesnt have a backglog of years of YOUR work, does it?

On another video, they say

"a lot of illustrator/photoshop work went into this art. I used Ai to get ideas for composition and generate some character ideas, still some stuff i wish i improved but i think i got it to a decent final stage. Hope you guys enjoy the art and the mix <3333 love!!!"

the art in question with my notes.

The reason this particular post stands out to me is because in the DESCRIPTION of this video, they say the art was made by @lumasi.png on instagram. So when i go to their account and find this art, i see this

so, ok. was it a commission or did tendyfarms make it using a lot of illustrator/photoshop work. and if they ARE two different people.. wow their styles are so similar thats crazy /sarcastic as fuck

I would also like to point out that @/lumasi.png's first post, one that isnt featured in a tendyfarms video, also reeks of ai.

But maybe this isnt a big issue. Their etsy after all only shows that theyve made 16 sales, and their most popular views sit around 100k views, which probably isnt enough to even earn a stable living from, so who cares.

Just. as someone who listens to a lot of music from youtube mixes/compilations, who also makes art, i feel it's really fucking disrespectful to try and claim art as your own in a space where i go to try and relax or find new musical artists. and it's fucking rampant! i have to check each mix to see if using ai for the art, which i can only really see if i click on the video, giving them a small boost in stats. And if they arent using ai art? theyre probably stealing the art directly from an artist and not giving proper credit. Forget about asking the artist for permission, it's not like countless youtubers have explained how thumbnails are The Most important element of a video. Just go ahead and take someone else's work to give yourself some cash.

I know tumblr users hate generative ai already, but i'd just like to give a little attention to what youtube looks like, and to try and ask for more vigilance, more comments calling out the bullshit. I dont see a lot of comments at all on tendofarm's posts! or any mention of ai can be brushed away with "oh i used ai as well as drawing it myself" :/ you didnt buddy. you just didnt do that.

Idk what the right thing to do is, report their etsy? report their youtube? does either company care? maybe you can tell me

but i should probably say dont harass them. as much as i would like to. just try your best not to give retention to videos that shamelessly and ile about ai. Really look at the videos, really scrutinize if you can spare the time to. thanks

also. is it just me or do the cats in lumasi's pfp and this etsy reviewer's photo look the same. not sure what this could mean. up to you

[reel-fear]

Wow, so umm... This looks bad, not only is it inaccurate due to using the wrong ink demon design [unless this is confirmation BATIM Ink Demon has been outright retconned... Which would make me pissed enough to make a new post just about THAT] but from an art standpoint this is just... Confusing and poorly done.

I wouldn't care if this was fanart, of course you should support young, indie artists... But for a Graphic Novel making sure your cover doesn't look like something Butch Hartman shat out in an afternoon is kind of important. Remember they're going to be asking us to give money to them to read this. The artist likely won't see any of that money and neither do the authors most of the time, not to mention this art screams of the artist being underpaid and overworked.

Like they Had to get something on someone's desk and their boss said 'good enough'. A concept Joey Drew Studios is very familiar with considering the allegations of poor working environments that Kindly Beast. Not to mention Mike Mood admitting in a Reddit AMA that they did in fact rush projects like Showdown Bandit. [Which they sold at full price]

He also says they can in fact say no or yes to designs involving their IP. Either Mike or Meatly had to say yes to this cover, according to his own damn words.

And do you really think this company in particular would care enough about its fanbase to not sell them garbage? They have done exactly that on several occasions. It's not like they care particularly about art either, considering their previous use of AI Art. There was no apology or even posts addressing it... Instead, they just rushed out an archives update to their game to get people to stop talking about it... Even forgetting an entire character in it. Again

This company is [or at least SHOULD BE] on thin ice when it comes to being suspected of misleading their fans or rushing out crappy products to them.

So with all that context in mind, I'm gonna talk about why this cover sucks ass.

The light sources are all over the place? Why does it look like someone put maces or knight armor on his shoulders but it's just flesh?? It looks both gross and weird [not in a good way either]

To explain more I'm going on a rant below but sadly this seems to have been confirmed to not just be a rough pass but the final cover and man... I am not excited about this graphic novel just at all. This felt like it really drained any possibility of it turning out good for me and I already had expectations low.

Okay first point, the light sources?? And there is no consistency here with the shadows or lighting, it looks like there's a hundred light sources all at once but none of them are even consistent!

the arrows here represent all the different light sources I can make out and yet the the shadow clearly implies there's only one. I understand wanting to use highlights to give the character a more clear shape but then just give him one or two lights behind him or in front of him? No matter how u follow the light sources, the highlights make no sense and the shadows make even less sense.

Why are the shoulders like that? Like on the legs it's a little understandable, at least those are clearly very heavily affected by perspective, for me I think they are so exaggerated it makes it look like one of the legs is either huge or one is small but that's maybe subjective.

However, the shoulders are unjustifiable, what happened there, what did they do??

I could pick on so much more honestly, how the color choices of piss yellow with no other colors being used, and the harsh pitch black being used for every part of his body is weird. How it looks straight out of Butch Hartman's recent crappy art. But to put bluntly bad start! Also what the HELL is going on with this background??

Seems once again the Bendy team is fine with sending out stuff thinking it's "Good Enough" for Bendy fans and honestly the people trying to tell me to "Be Grateful" for this are just proving that no matter how many times you betray your audience some of em will defend you!

Which is sad tbh. If anything we should be putting MORE pressure on the Bendy team to do better. Cause we deserve better than this, honestly we do. There are amazing artists in the bendy community who could do so much better for a cover. They've employed their fan artists before... Wouldn't it be great to do that for such a lore important book? The book that gives us the identity of one of the main characters in BATIM? The character you spend the entirety of Chapter 4 fighting to save? Not to mention will give several major characters their human designs?

But I guess this is... Good enough...

[wickedsnack-art]

Can I ask about your online selling experience? I know you're moving away from Etsy (and I don't blame you!) but just curious about what's worked/what hasn't. Trying to help my mom sell her art but like. She's older and I have never sold art online and can't give her any advice.

Please feel free to tag other artists selling their work as well! Thank you 🙏

Oh I have to be honest I am probably not the best person to ask about this as it's something I've definitely struggled with myself! I will say for what it's worth that I've been seeing a lot of artists struggling lately; no matter how "popular" an artist is, many seem to be reporting sales that are lower than expected even if market research/interest checks/preorders were done.

Everyone is struggling financially right now---it's been this way for YEARS---and art is one of the first luxuries to go.

That said, Etsy worked well for me for a long time. If your mom isn't doing fanart, she should be fine, because my biggest issue with them arose about the fact that I was selling fanart. Some tips I have;

USE EVERY TAG. Etsy has, if I recall correctly, 13 tags you can put on an individual item. Use all 13. Use them for alternative words for what you're selling (if it's a sticker, tag it as a decal, if it's a print, tag it as a poster). Think about who you think would buy this and what weird search terms they may use to try to find it, and think about alternative uses for the item (a trinket dish might also be an ashtray).

HAVE DESCRIPTIVE TITLES. Put the most important words first so people can see what they're getting right away, but don't be afraid of slightly longer titles. Honestly my titles could've and should've been longer, like Sailor Moon Art Nouveau Digital Art Poster Print Multiple Sizes or something.

RUN SALES OFTEN. Even if it's just 10-15% off people will buy something they've been eying for a while when there's a sale, or they'll feel more eager to buy something they've just found if it's on sale.

USE ETSY'S AUTOMATED DISCOUNT OFFERS. Etsy can automatically send a discount code to people who have interacted with your shop, use it. I made more sales from the automated 10% off code sent to people who favorited items than my monthly Patreon discount.

USE ETSY FREE SHIPPING. Shipping via Etsy is pretty cheap, and activating the "free shipping on orders over $35" will boost your spot in the algorithm, will boost the likelihood that people will order from you, and will boost the average cart size of people that order from you.

I RECOMMEND PRINTFUL. I used Printful for selling my larger prints, but they also offer other items if you want to branch out. If you don't want to get in trouble with Etsy, make sure you register it as a manufacturing partner and assign every item that Printful makes for you. Dropshipping on Etsy is a problem, but the problem is people who steal art or use AI to generate images to sell. I don't personally see a problem with someone who makes their art themselves going through a print shop to sell products they don't have the means to create at home. If you don't want to do that, you can check out inprnt. I haven't used them, but many other people have and seem to like it well enough.

SHIP THROUGH ETSY. It doesn't take very long to set up a shipping profile for your items, and it makes shipping easier and cheaper. As long as you get your items out on time, you'll get their shipping star or whatever very quickly and easily and maintain it without problem. It also has the benefit that if a buyer ever has an issue with the shipping, Etsy is more likely to have your back. If for any reason you can't ship through Etsy, I recommend pirateship. Also!! Be more careful about international shipping than you think you should be. There are a lot of confusing international laws regarding sending items as a corporation to those countries that you may not expect, so before you agree to selling something to a foreign country, make sure you check their laws.

I have also tried having an Instagram shop and I'll be fully honest I don't do what I should do with my Instagram. Maybe other people have more successful Instagram shops, but the process it took for me to get it started compared to how many sales I've made as a result of it (literally ZERO), I would not recommend it.

Shopify is good if you have a following somewhere, because you have to bring all the traffic there yourself. That's the benefit of Etsy and Instagram; they are able to make traffic for you. I've never had a following large enough anywhere to feel like I could run a Shopify of my art. Maybe one day.

I don't personally know a lot of artists who sell online successfully, so if you see this and you fall under that category PLEASE SHARE TIPS!!

[eliluminado7]

im writing my broad opinion on AI art now that im on an autistic tangent about it. im kinda cooked from yesterday so sorry if i dont make much sense

my issue with (serious) A‎I art is not because of moral or ethical implications arising from the technology itself, but rather from the general userbase itself. like i believe most of us can fucking tell if something's ai generated when we see it right. Bear in mind i said serious AI art. you know i love a good sei‎nfel‎d screenshot of je‎rry and kra‎mer going into the void or geo‎rge dressed as a coss‎ack

anyways generally speaking the kind of people generating those serious illustrations are all either 1. recycled nftbros 2. porn freaks or 3. children. And im gonna be real i do not like that kind of AI art even if its just a harmless illustration of a pokemon or whatever. to me it feels like those ppl are either kids who i Do Not Think should be on the net, or basement dwelling deviantart incels who are like 'Computer generate se‎xy gard‎evoir vo‎re infla‎tion fe‎et pics'. the kind of people who wouldve had no problem stealing others' art. just sayin.

well actually theres a fourth category and those are companies and public institutions that use AI art (often as some sort of money laundering scheme, if i may add) and those are the ones ACTUALLY hurting artists because You See you could be actually hiring someone instead of using fucking midjourney or bing. this is a very common practice here in spain even if it ends up looking like literal shit, see:

also theres this yearly art contest in either val‎encia or cata‎lunya where ppl submit illustrations of snails and this year's winner was a very blatantly AI generated pic created by some turkish individual who is rumored to not even exist. its a rabbit hole but looking up bedhiran akagündüz (or, likewise, rubén lucas garcía) should set you on the right track

Now let me be clear: i vehemently hate anti-ai luddites and picrew fandomites and ive always been very vocal about this. and quite frankly im tired of the moral panic steeming from anything AI-generated as if it was the antichrist!!!!! you all just sound reactionary as fuck. AI art is certainly not stealing from you and the only exceptions to this rule are very very very blatant copies, and you almost never see those unless were talking about nft-adjacent ponzi scheme websites. would you consider collages theft? music samples? AI just draws "inspiration" (for lack of a better word) from the illustrations that it is fed because its like a tabula rasa and it needs knowledge, just like us human beings are inspired by other people's artstyles. the end product is something that doesnt even look similar to the data it is fed because it is an amalgamation of different styles that create something unique. is that theft? be for fucking real

this stupid myth about the brutal energy consumption of AI art generation as well as the whole ‘did you know that every time you generate one picture youre wasting an entire bottle of water????’ argument... im sorry to say none of that is true. ai isn't even the most water-intensive sector if we're comparing it with other industrial sectors like petroleum/coal factories or wineries or paperboard mills. training datasets IS resource-intensive but its normally a one-time process, inference (which is what you use daily) is not any less efficient than looking something up on google for example:

this whole 'carbon footprint' bullshit that has been sold to us is just a tactic to divert attention from the actual polluters which are corporations like coca-cola or exxon or bp. You know this you get your praxis from this website.

regarding the whole 'AI is theft' argument, im just going to share these tags that someone left in another post i made:

like a clear example of anti-ai panic actively hurting artists is the backlash that oka‎me-p, a voc‎aloid artist, got for using AI generated illustrations as the ACCOMPANIMENT for his songs:

and to be honest this is a huge problem regarding western voc‎afans who often have the emotional maturity of a peanut. youre so so so hellbent on demonizing others just for using a technology that is widely available to everyone, that youre willing to throw them under the bus and delegitimize everything they do just because it hurts your feelings well im not going to fucking stay quiet about that

who do you think youre talking to you stupid fucking bitch. god this person makes me so mad.

Anyways my point is: ai is like acupuncture; just like the latter can be used to treat or alleviate different ailments but it cant completely treat cancer like modern medicine would; AI can be complimentary, but it can NEVER replace actual labor. its merely a worktool! its merely meant to automatize daily tasks!!! its not your enemy i promise. Ok im tired of writing goo buh buh

[damnfandomproblems]

5168

That One Anon: Get the fuck out of fandom then if you are That against "theft". Your blorbos aren't yours, then, they belong to the original creators. Go pick up a pen and write your own characters, thief. Never make a creative aspect without citing every single possible subconscious influence you took for it. That head tilt you drew? The concept of a sad backstory? Proper credit only, you thief.

Oh, what's that? You don't count?

I read books daily. I write and draw from pure imagination, and study artists on youtube to get better at drawing.

I also think AI is a tool that can be used for good or ill, and it's how people use it that matters. Much like how a keyboard doesn't stop a human from sending anon hate.

I'd commission artists if I could! I've done so in the past. But guess what, I don't feel safe asking for commissions now on the off chance a artist realizes I think AI is a tool like any other and harasses me when I never would have brought it up. Despite the fact many artists both fandom and original have tons of influences both credited and not. I've seen human artists and writers get accused of AI for STYLISTIC CHOICES that anyone with half a thought should be able to tell was artist intent and inline with previous works.

I can count on one hand the amount of collage art/blackout poetry/drawn over photographs I've seen in public museums that were properly credited beyond the editor. I can't count the amount of media I've seen that nudges at other pre-existing works that was either hyped up for it or was said to justify that aspect.

Ko-fi tipping, Patron subscriptions, sales of generically labled charms and prints and fanart to get around what's Actually being sold. Art style memes, art referenced from canonical works as intentional homage uncredited. Uncredited style inspiration. The entire existence of unsourced, constantly remixed memes.

You gonna claim that's all fine, but anons should expect to be accused of being "techbros" and linked to foreign words meaning "masturbating and crying" for just asking what an artstyle from a artist is called? That it's actually FINE to drive off people wanting to be creative no matter the medium because that particular one 'isn't art' and so no one can want to be a artist and use it?

I swear I've gone back to the 2010s and 'is digital art REAL art though? the computer draws the line for you? You aren't a REAL artist, you just use photoshop to edit things.'

"That's still done by a human person though-"

Hypocrite. Get the fuck out of fandom.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

[tacodemuerte]

you have no obligation to reply to this i just felt a bit :/ esp as ive liked your work for so long (TYSM for all the Bill and Ted art!)

But the discussion around what art is valuable/good is quite a reactionary one? Especially as those discussions are old as balls - oh no modern art is worthless, Duchamp did NOT make that fountain!! - and arbitrary too, the usual basis people go off of is what? White hegemony? Who gets gallery space? Who gets sold for the highest price? (To conflate 'good' = worth money is pretty silly when 'good' is subjective) When famously minority groups are the ones excluded from those categories.

Similarly to praise this innate hand made, human connection is a bit silly, and ableist to boot (I'm sure this is done to death but honestly, art is not imbued with a piece of human soul matter just because the artist touched a pencil, and decrying a valuable tool for disabled people on this basis is so harmful.) Moreover, people had the same criticisms of digital art and of photography - both well respected mediums today!

Sorry for the long ask!

i can see that point of the argument. but those kinds of arguments are also used from ai bros as well. handmade doesn't always mean literally hand made, it just means made by someone. there's countless of artists who make art without having to use hands as well, that are being hurt by ai.

i get that the subject of what art is good/bad can turn into complete nonesense, but i think again that discussing what makes an art piece valuable is important, because that is what gets us jobs/pieces sold.

i think part of why ai is able to weasel it's way in is because people don't want to have any strong opinion with art. "art is subjective!" "i dont want to determine what is art and waht isn't", but the thing is this isn't a urinal or a photobashed piece.. this is something that is made to eliminate the work of artists. i think we should absolutely reject ai art because it's not good for us. like at all..

ai generated art is made in disdain of artists. it's not innovative in the least, and it discourages people from being creative.

i know that my opinion is really strong but i just dont see any positive outcome from this. like let's say someone does get compensated for getting their work scraped from an ai..like is that it? it's just gonna be ai generated images from coca cola and sony for the rest of our lives? why bother hiring any artist when you can just scrape from one guy for 100 years... i dont want that to be the future JDIOSHFS