#not 100% with the composition/bg but

[rhymesswith]

Sort of companion to this one.

[omegalomania]

i thought the beginning part of the background music for the claymation teaser sounded an awful lot like the guitar riffs we got at the end, and it turns out someone on the fob subreddit agreed and spliced the two together. uploading here for posterity!

[ixiot-ghostrebel]

Ok ok. I'm back from the dead, And with another headcannon! following my last music related ask

What if after the characters hear our music they start subconsciously humming, or even singing it? After all the creator never has their computer volume on... exept this time we do! And we hear venti, or Barbara, or another character singing our favorite song A LOT. So much so that instead of the usual voices it's all song references and lyrics... I imagine it going something like this:

(venti dies) "don't worry... I'm never going to let you down.."

OR

(Barbara's afk) "la- La- LA- ehem, I'm working late because I'm a singer~"

Well a long night of trying to find out if it was an event mihoyo planned or something else is surely waiting right?

- 🦇

OMG HI 🦇 ANON HRUUUU

Dwdw, Ghost Rebel's been dead as well—you have not been the only one, rest assured 🥲

For this request, I won't be really focusing much on what music the Reader listens to (entirely up to you imo), so apologies if this affects your reading experience!

(The Request 🦇 Anon Mentioned)

Ayo, They Know My MUSIC ✨😎

(Warning: Might be OOC!)

Who would've thought that all that singing pays off—now, all musicians and bards of Teyvat are reciting Their Almighty Grace's ballads like they're some holy, ancient harmonies (to them, it probably is—somehow—)

Let's see what our favorite ones have been up to! :D

Venti

With the amount of times you vibed to your songs, Venti's picked them up by listening through the wind. You can 100% assume that he is vibing to it, no matter what time or moment.

People thought he was singing his own ballads when he was humming your songs, when, in fact, he's listening to you jamming out in the distance.

So imagine your shock when you hear Venti sing your song. It was as shocking as Venti without his wine.

"Hehe~ Their Grace looks so flabbergasted!" Venti in the bg just cheering over the fact he made you shocked at his impression of your song!

Bro has zero regrets for breaking the Fourth Wall.

Barbara

Girlie is singing her heart out in the Church of Favonius, and everyone's there for it. 100% she has become the true Idol of Mondstadt.

Super excited and nervous at the same time when you put her in your party team (for whatever reason, only you will know), because this is a chance to show off her practice. She wants to impress you with the song she's heard you sing and hum to countless of times!

So the moment she let it slip through her idle animation, imagine her embarrassment as you flip out, questioning your life choices and your sleep deprivation

"S-Surely, I didn't scare Their Almighty Grace all too badly...?" Barbara's twiddling her fingers, contemplating if she should've done that in the first place, only to be reassured when the other nuns of the church mention that you were screaming how good it was (Ex. "HELLO???? BARBARA???? THAT WAS SO GOOD HELLO??? VOICE ACTOR BE POPPING OFF MAYBE??? THIS GLITCH IS AWESOME!")

Yes, she's doing this again. Add her back to her team. Now. :)

Xinyan

Oh, she is going to rock'n'roll hard after this. She is definitely going to make a rock cover of your song and play it all through Liyue!

Gurl's on her merry way, practicing with her guitar and singing loud and proud! Yunjin be cheering her on in the background as she masters that small snippet of your favorite song >:D

And when it's her time to shine? When you finally give her the chance to perform? Sure, she's nervous—she's only got one shot, and who knows when the next one will come—but she's gonna rock this song with everything she's got, heart, soul, and mind!

The moment you see it happening, Xinyan's a little too into it to care of your reaction at first, pretty much having a blast at the lyrics and overall music composition.

But after? "Whoo, I sure hope Their Grace liked it...Maybe I should've taken in how they were reacting instead of going all out, hehe..." Her legs are kind of shaking from her nerves, but she swears she's fine!

Upon seeing how the citizens of Liyue Harbor are acting though, and with the amount of positive comments her friends kept giving her, Xinyan is calling her performance an absolute success!

She is definitely doing this again—10/10!

Ghost Rebel Side Notes: THIS TOOK TOO LONG TO MAKE I AM SO SORRY UGHHHH. I hate it when I say I'd be active and then the next thing I know, I'm being bombarded with irl problems >:(

Anyways! A few updates as I'm writing this: I am no longer taking Sagau Genshin requests for now (even if I might still be writing for a few—there's some waiting in my inbox that I gotta get to), as I need a break to recharge my batteries. However: HSR and Wuthering Waves are free and up for requests, so don't be shy to shoot your shots there!

✦ Check out The Ghost Rebel’s Blog Description & Info Page to See if Their Mailbox is Open! ✦

[nerimaemae]

I'm sure you've answered this before but I'm super curious if you might have a place you maybe share tips for post processing gposes?

Heya! Actually never recieved ny questions about it lol

I never really made a guide/tutorial of how I edit bcs I just use knowledge/process that I also apllied on digital illustration (it's been a year that i dont draw anymore but for around 6 years I made freelancer work and even more time just as a hobbie!) this also helps with compositions and colors sometimes!

Ok, so. My use of post process will depend on the pic mostly! Sometimes I'll do more and others i'll do less. I can show some pics with no post (gshade only) & with post, and explain a little.. dunno if it will be useful tho!

This one my main nitpick was with the polygons sticking out, as the 3D models are not 100% smooth, and with the way I pose they can get worse sometimesl ol take a look specially on the arms/forearms, blonde's dress on shoulders.. I also corrected the light and small bits of shadows on the bun's face with blend tool. Eyes highlights and little dot at the blonde's mouth corner

Here I too mostly worked on smoothing the face shadows as they had no transition and that bothered me. Also the top left lip corner had a weird shadow bcs of the weird posing that I fixed (sometimes if better to fix this kind o ting on post then fight with the model in game bcs that can become frustrating!) The smoke and pacticles effect was with StageDepth.fx on gshade!

This one was mostly face light reflections (specially blonde's face and eyes! And her glove too, forgot that) and miqo's mouth/cheeck corner was too harh so I smoothed a little! Obviusly the tube effect, and I think some more light reflections, like miqo's vest lapel and tie. The blu light effect was achieved with ktisis light actor and the red was from the in game cauldron. The light depth and contrast was achieved using RTGI.fx from MartysMods iMMERSE pack!

Here was more fx like the dus and movement blur. Ronka's face (eyes and inner of mouth that had shadows) And characters face shadows that were too light! In the first, the bike mount was with movement enabled so it already had a little ground dust!

This one had basically just the spell effects and better blur on bg. The face was only frown lines under the inner eye corner!

Some other pics I didn't use post at all, not even for color correction, like tose down here

This ^ one I only did color correction for the white sky light that was too f strong lol the leaves are stage depth too!

Sorry again for the long ass answer and post :')

[impandgnomes]

Been working with Tegridy these past couple of weeks!!!!! This took forever to finish - so many ends to weave in lmao. I'm so glad it's done though.

I kind of posted about the Tegridy Farms blanket here like last night, but figured since it's actually done now you all deserved some pictures, alongside a repost of my notes on making it. I really love the overall vibe of the colours and composition and I like to hope that I captured some of that here.

Notes regarding yarn, sizing etc. from previous post for completion's sake under the cut:

My color choices aren't a 1:1 match with the ones in the show. I would still argue them as "realistic" versions allowing for the saturation of coloring on the BG in the show, but YMMV and gatekeeping my technically incorrect choice would be beyond silly. I just really like making stuff I see in cartoons.

I basically tried to make this thing roughly to scale with the one in the show though, as others I saw worked single strands of DK yarn, resulting in a really small blanket.

I did some math by measuring the heights of a square of the blanket and the couch on the screencap given above and cross-referencing it with the average height of a couch (regarding my formal diagnosis and to quote tiktok, "I have this thing, it's ＡＵＴＩＳＭ"). The result was each square measuring approximately 13-15cm iirc.

I just used a basic granny square layout with this method on regular DK yarn with a 7mm crochet hook to work the squares into the ideal size. They sat at just over 15cm and I somehow only just had enough of the gray yarn. I imagine from what we see that the blanket is 7x7 squares with the others hanging off the back out of sight, so I made 42 squares in total.

Most of the yarn (except the white which was just some salvaged stuff) was Aldi UK's seasonally stocked "So Crafty" acrylic Double Knit yarn, so I was certainly sweating bullets re: if I even had enough (not sure how easy substitutes would have been). Color names are Wheat, Grass, Rose Garden, and Gun Metal.

Technically the cushions are also achievable in crochet - they would use c2c (corner to corner) and I think that's 100% the intent in their design due to the blocky/pixelated appearance of the images. There's plenty of charts for images like those, but making your own would work too. I would definitely like to hear from whoever on the design team chose to put these in the BG and if they were inspired by something or someone, since with the cushions especially it feels weirdly specific to me to use crochet in like 2017 for the "homely and rustic weed farmhouse" vibe I imagine Randy trying to force here. Based on eyeballing it and my square sizes, I'd aim for a 30cm² cushion maybe.

[hinamie]

The way you draw environments has me in awe. Could you tell about your train of thought or methods? I want to draw inspiration.

thank u so much!! to be completely honest with you I'm still very much in a learning stage in figuring out how i like to do backgrounds and environments. like a lot of artists i spent a long time in Character Standing Against White Bg jail and have only stated moving away from that in recent years. bc i'm still learning, I don't rly have any concrete tips or tricks :'> i'm very much just stumbling through n making things up as i go based on what i think looks good

tht being said i rely /very/ heavily on insp pictures and reference. usually i'll go through pinterest and save a bunch of pictures of environments similar to what I'm going for, then pick and choose elements i like from each to kind of frankenstein my own background together when I start actually painting. bc of this i think if you look too closely some of my composition might be a bit wonky since different parts r reffed from different images but i try to make up for that by being cohesive with colours and lighting.

which brings me 2 the next point !! fr me at least, lighting /sells/ a scene. do i use bright lights as a crutch 2 hide areas I'm less confident in, yes, but i am being 100% genuine when i say tht the entire mood and emotion of a piece can completely change depending on how it's lit. knowledge of what colours look good tgt and how to apply lighting comes with practice and tbh i mostly just wing it after i finish deciding a. what mood i want to aim for (hopeful, intimate, wistful, lonely are some emotions i frequent), where the main light source is coming from, and whether i want the piece to be warm/cold light/dark.

[weksey]

⭐️ mini ask post (sorry some of these are late)!

i'm glad you found it helpful! i work full time as a studio designer now but as a freelancer it would depend on the project... a lot of times clients would have a budget, so they'd set a flat rate and i'd negotiate from there (with varying results). disclaimer that these are junior rates and i live in the uk where the pay is notoriously bad, even in london:

for context, i mostly did hand-drawn animation for social media/marketing/tv ads - i had jobs ranging from £2k for ~12 secs of animation (though this was inclusive of storyboarding and character designs) to £600 for a whole-ass 90 sec film (also including storyboards/designs/edits). i wouldn't use the latter as a reference point because i was definitely being lowballed and if it were up to me i'd charge way higher LOL but as a graduate i ended up taking on those briefs for my portfolio and they did lead to me getting more work, for what it's worth. for comparison, i've talked to more established freelancers who'd ballpark £8-12k for a 2 min animation over a ~2 month production schedule.

my illustration work (mostly editorial gigs) would vary depending on the drawing's complexity/usage/client budget... but it was typically about £100-150 per illustration (also not great, but people kept telling me this was normal for a graduate so i just accepted it, despite being, like, fully rendered illustrations with bgs). again, i would price things differently if it were completely up to me, especially since i'm more confident with my style now, but i would honestly ask more experienced illustrators for better reference. i wanted to offer up my experience anyway bc i think it's beneficial to have transparent conversations about pay in this industry.

oh, and i do basically all of my illo/animation work in photoshop on my 8 year-old laptop (+ premiere pro for compositing), with a wacom intuos tablet... i don't necessarily recommend this equipment because 1) adobe is dudu, and 2) i recently started drawing on an ipad with procreate and it feels so much better than drawing on desktop, and i will probably upgrade my setup when i can comfortably afford to lol

in reference to these figurines - i used white air dry clay from hobbycraft! painted over with acrylics (and clay varnish, though that didn't seem to do much)

yeah... i salute akechi fans who are like, "i like akechi but i don't condone his actions" etc. because he could kill another 5 people and i'd be like, "that's literally iconic"

thank youuuuu! 💛 i'm glad people like my p5 art... even though a lot of it is old and ooc... i'll always keep it up because i like that others still enjoy it... goro akechi foreverrrrr

[naomistares]

Hi I think ur art is so amazing!!! I only read tlt recently and as soon as I saw ur art it was pretty much all I could think about lol I'm obsessed with how u do ur compositions and bgs, and people (and everything about ur art)

Also,,,,,I was wondering where/who u get inspo from when u make ur peices?

No pressure to answer this ask if ur not feeling it!!! I hope ur having a rlly good day and resting before/during uni <3333

hi!! i hope you had a fun time reading them!! and thank you for the kind words 🫶🫶

honestly the answer is really simple! my inspiration just comes straight out of the books.. it does powerful things to me and my head.. (i don't know how after many years i am still not bored or out of inspiration)

and i just try really hard to capture what i imagine (although it has never come out exactly right, save for literally a few drawings) if i were just drawing random people that i am not emotionally invested in, you would 100% notice a lack.

good media is the ultimate inspiration! trying to replicate the way something made me feel, what it made me see, is super fun to me and highly rewarding !

so i guess i do get my inspo from tazmuir (the who) and my mind palace (the where) 😭 !

[fishuus]

Hello. I’ve been meaning to ask. Where have you learned to draw and do these manga/comic pages? It’s always been a struggle for me and no matter what I do, it has always looked either a mess and not clean.

hi! i'm sooo sorry for how late this reply is, but i'm also not sure how helpful this may be.

the basic answer is that i learned by 1) reading a lot of comics and deciding hey that looks cool i want to try executing something like that, and 2) getting a sense of what works and what doesn't work for me by drawing a lot of em. my general advice is just that it comes with a lot of practice, but practice with intent. making the destiny lore comics has been a lot of fun personally because it lets me mess around with different styles and narrative tones (which set the visuals) depending on the lore card.

i think "clean" can be a very subjective term; it could mean a lot of different things. if you're referring to having clean inks, it's just tied to what's comfortable for my drawing hand in terms of how i do lineart. i love inking, i like simple BW values and hatching and using spot black as a crutch so this is just where my style ended up. tbh i tend to feel like my lines are too stiff and i'm always trying to loosen up and be messier! depending on what you're struggling on, using 3d models and photo references can also help fill in the gaps where things aren't looking quite right to your eyes. i have zero concept of perspective and absolutely no 3d mental map so i rely heavily on 3d bg refs. if a panel just isn't working out, think about how you can adjust the composition to something that works better for your hand but still conveys the same visual idea.

also on a sillier level, my canvas defaults to fairly large resolutions because i got used to drawing at those sizes and when i shrink it down to post it, it inevitably helps smooth things out a bit lol. here's an example at 100%:

i hope this answers your question, sort of...?!

[lemon-wedges]

Heey just wanted to tell you that I adore your art, especially the way you draw Barok. You humanised him in a way I've never seen an artist do. All your characters, but especially him, look like real, soft, approachable people. I can almost see their chests expanding, I can imagine them laughing and breathing, I can tell how in love your ships are, which is very special and very rare

Your art makes me extremely emotional

(also where did you study, what books did u read, how long did it take you to learn to draw like that??)

AH thank you for the sweet ask! it really made my day to hear this TTuTT

As for your other asks, ill put them undercut with some photos and links to stuff!!

I've been drawing for about ahhhh 16 years( 8 of which are actually like serious school stuff than just a hobby) but tbh its only really been in the last 3 where i feel like ive been making actual progress in improving my stuff. but thats my personal path in art and its always gonna be different for you or anyone else.

anyways 3 years ago i made some changes to my drawing habits and study methods that were like. real specific to where i wanted my art to go (cleaner lines, better foundations, gesture, etc etc). I worked on thing one at a time tho!! it can get overwhelming real quick if youre not careful. So the stuff im gonna give you is geared towards....well, me? both in content im searching for and just the classes that resonate how i like learning

OK BOOKS:

CLEANER LINES. I use to have a habit of making like EXTREMELY sketchy and unconfident lines. This is a landscape book that i literally just copied every single thumbnail. Helped me get into the habit of both using only a few strokes to get an idea across and breaking down complicated subjects into shapes

ANATOMY. Morpho series. Its not a how-to-book tho its just a compilation of an artists break downs. This one is my fav tho. And helped a lot when i was struggling to understand like ALL BODY PARTS

CLOTHING. This is probably my fav clothing book. Very short and published in the 1940s. Its helpful specifically to ME cause its clothing is closer to TGAA outfits(mens) than more modern books LOL

And now CLASSES. I do actually have an art degree from a university and let me tell you. I was left SEVERELY lacking any skills i needed to go into the industry I was interested in 👍 (not cause of the professors but cause the school itself was actively killing its art department :p) So i was kinda just left looking into online stuff on my own (AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE!!!! MY BELOVED AFFORABLE CLASSES )

NEW MASTERS ACADEMY. Its a subscription-have access to all the videos for a month to a year- kind of thing. cheapest is about $40 a month. REALLY REALLY helped my anatomy and foundations. Steve Huston: Good for entire step by step anatomy break downs. Micheal Mattesi & Karl Gnass: Gesture. I've watched a handful of other videos but these instructors were the most helpful to me

DRAWING AMERICA. A lot more pricey. Around $100-$300. but youre basically paying to own the recorded classes and keep them forever. I've only really taken Will Westons classes cause he focuses on BGS and props. But he also has some nice composition stuff thrown in there too.

(I've taken a LOT of online courses and the thing about a majority of them is that they arent really taught by professors or teachers so they tend to be more like a giant Tip video than an actual lesson plan. And if u haven't taken an art class before the difference is HUGE)

and i think thats it? i guess if theres anything else i can give u its this tip:

you mentioned my art is humanizing. Thats a comment ive heard a few times and i guess its odd to say but i dont really know what youre seeing? Like i understand the "ships in love" but cause i did go out of my way to draw sappy love faces 10 bajillion times until i was satisfied. But alive? hmmmmmm like THINK i might know what you may be responding to. Its a combo of the gesture and my effort in trying not to loose the energy of the original sketch when i go to clean it up. And what ive figured out is this. Youre not outlining or tracing your under sketch youre REDRAWING it .

i put the under sketch and clean up next to each other so hopefully this makes sense but like. when i do an under sketch im only really focused on building the figure. When u build a figure youre drawing out bigger shapes and breaking them down into smaller and smaller ones. Lines feel like they have more energy at this stage because the circles and cylinders are fully drawn out, making them have a continuous momentum. So then when it comes to the clean up stage. im not looking to trace the exact lines i drew out (if u notice my final isnt a 1 to 1 copy of the og) im trying to follow the flow of the original lines. thats why youll see lines go thru the figure sometimes, its me trying to keep the energy in that line even if its not suppose to be very long.

idk if this makes any sense at all.....and maybe i should have recorded me actually drawing this out but [shrug emoji] i could do it later if anyone is interesting in wtf is happening here. CAUSE I SWEAR ever since i started cleaning my sketches like this i started to get those comments. but also i could be wrong too.....then i REALLY dont know what im doing ahahahah

Anyways, i hope something in here ends up helping you anon!!! GOOD LUCK ARTING I BELIEVE IN YOU :O

[earthstellar]

Oh, G1 Season 2. 

Decapitated Optimus: “I can sense the presence of my legs.”

Meanwhile, Ratchet is standing there with no less than two missiles pointed INCHES ABOVE HIS HEAD, and Bumblebee is way, way too close to Spike.

Spike, who is standing in the exact same pose as Bumblebee (compare their arms), because they traced and scaled up the sketch for Spike on a different cel layer and then drew a Bumblebee over it to make a Bumblebee layer because fuck it, that works fine. 

Alternatively, they only drew Bumblebee, then realised they fucked up and drew Spike in the only place he would fit in the composition of this shot, but Bumblebee here has juuust enough of a slightly crisper edge and brighter colour (closer to the top of the cel layers) to him that I think they did the first one.

So I think the cel layers here are BG, Hound, Ratchet (look at his forearm overlapping Hound, it’s a little blurrier because matte grey on cel material is a pain in the ass to work with and you see grey as a little weirdly outlined in a lot in older cartoons but here it looks like it was likely painted with a masking tape line to create as angular of an edge as possible), Spike, Bumblebee, then Mirage because foreground was almost always top of the cel stack. 

Not always though, they notably fucked up cel layering more than once in G1 that’s for sure LOL 

I mean I’m not 100% sure, I haven’t seen this scene in motion in years so I don’t remember what the animation actually looked like. lol 

The scale is still a little fucked up, because it is always fucked up. 

I don’t know why, but this specific screenshot always makes me laugh so hard. The missiles are SO CLOSE TO RATCHET’S HEAD 

Also, look at the placement of Ratchet’s thumb. It has to be so close to Optimus’ eye. It might even be slightly hooked on the top edge of his battle mask, presumably to help Ratchet’s grip, assuming Optimus has his mask engaged in this scene. I don’t remember. It’s G1, so probably. 

I also like how in the 80s, the idea of cool futuristic industrial complex style building was still tiled 70s disco venue flooring and purple mood lighting. 

I mean there are reasons for choosing certain colours for backgrounds, but the floor and walls are the exact same colour here, which suggests that there is some kind of lighting situation happening. 

I don’t even remember what episode this is from, I’ve just had this screenshot on my laptop forever. lmao 

[ospguenolelorho]

RUNAWAY -- Notes on 1/100 Exercise

I don’t think I did a very good job as DoP as I don't think what we shot is an editable sequence. Usually, when I shoot something, I am able to edit it in my head to some extent. I was not able to do that, so I knew we were missing some elements.

Shot list:

I sorta knew we probably needed more coverage when the actors go around the bed, but thought the wide shot would cover it sufficiently — In my head the blocking was intricate enough that the wide could function as a moving master.

Once on set, however, the set dressing was too small to frame the actors properly in the wide throughout the take — they appear pushed to the top right corner for a good part of the shot. And so we had to improvise some extra shots on set, which meant we didn’t have time to put enough thought into them.

Moreover, seeing the clips now I realise the blocking may not be appropriate for the space that was dressed. In some shots the camera is sitting on the line with characters overlapping and occupying the same side of the frame simply because readjusting the camera would either show beyond the set or show the wall flat on.

The main example is the most crucial moment of the film: the confrontation between the two characters. It happens in the most awkward place of the set, where both characters are next to the wall and there’s no way to get a light on the other side of the actors. The characters fighting over the bag is also not shot properly as the angle and lens we chose made it impossible to cover the action in a single shot. On set, we quickly rehearsed this part on a wider lens (35mm). When shooting this setup came, Andrew suggested we stay on the 50mm from the previous setup as it might look better and be more stylistically continuous. In retrospect, I should have refused (sorry!) as although maybe more stage-like, the wider lens did cover the fighting over the bag better and Monica sitting on the bed.

There was also a mismatch of intention between me and the director (Rita) on-set, as I thought we were going to end up on a wide shot of Isla (Monica) when Rita had made up her mind on a CU.

Lighting

There were lighting problems that I knew we had, but I had no real clue how to fix them. The Amaran light was sufficient for the characters in front of the bed, but I didn’t know what to do with the light once they went on the other side. I was trying to elevate the levels, and doing so mostly using the Amaran key light, which only increased the harshness of the light. I forgot about some basic techniques such as using a ceiling bounce to elevate all the levels at once.

This meant that character's face would go from very light to very dark depending on orientation. The lighting still looks pretty good thanks to the Amaran ability to make the shadows very soft and the basic reflex of checking levels for every shot.

I would have liked a hair/rim light to separate the characters more from the BG and one another, but had no idea how to achieve that.

I also don’t think I expressed my intentions with the window frame properly as I wanted it to be a big texturing light on the characters rather than a detail in the BG. It was a bit too late to change the cookie when I understood how to fix it – i.e. making the whole cookie frame bigger and closer to the bed. How I wanted the light to show up is sorta seen in some behind-the-scenes still when people walk closer to the light.

Being camera operator

I don’t think I like operating the camera while being DoP, as just tracking the actors and making sure no bad bits of the set design show up in frame means this is all my brain is focused on doing, meaning I'm unable to focus on the composition and how the shadows appear on the faces.

The lack of proper camera/blocking rehearsals meant that I was also unsure of whether the camera should follow actors or stay in position at certain moments during the shoot.

All and all I think we should have made a blocking rehearsal with the viewfinder app to figure out how every shot would actually play out. I also think spending more time to align intentions would have been helpful as whenever the need for a decision on set came, I did not know which choice would correspond to Rita’s intention.

[apollodrome]

Let me start off by saying that my initial ask was written because it's genuinely insane to me that someone I thought I agreed with on the subject of ethics is into an exploitative product created by venture capitalists with the purpose to put artists out of work. I didn't expect a response, and if I had been responded to, I didn't expect any agreement from the peanut gallery; I don't follow people who I disagree with on something as important to me as this, so if followers of txttletale's saw the ask, I assumed they would 100% be against me. I sent it anyway. I'm surprised by the few PMs of support I did get.

Ultimately, yes, I shouldn't have sent it at all - it was an emotional response. I apologize to txttletale for not just unfollowing and blocking like I would with any other genAI supporter, but expressing my disappointment to her. It had nothing to do with her, at the end of the day. You do misrepresent me though; I never expressed I expected a reply from txttletale or from you, I don't know why you act as though my initial decision not to engage is hypocritical. Plus, if engaging with TERFs online as a trans person has taught me anything, it's that regardless of how good my points are, I will not necessarily be taken in good faith, being a member of the outgroup - in fact, I already haven't been, by you, with this whole post practically dripping with derision. Maybe the death threats in my ask box are just a byproduct of existing as a trans person online (I didn't check when they were sent), but as a worst-case scenario, I could get harassed and doxxed by responding at length, regardless of if my arguments hold any merit.

It does feel disingenuous of you to drag this out into a whole post saying "run coward", putting little gifs and sound bytes in, ohhhh you've really owned me (or w/e), and being condescending to me, when at the time I was still in replies actively responding (albeit slowly, I'm at work). I'll go over some of my points and why I think what I think for you, but I won't engage further; public "discussions" where I'm being repeatedly insulted and misrepresented aren't my style, as I've said.

First, it strikes me as unfair to blame rigging for everything you claim it did. Already, with 2D productions becoming digital, inkers and painters had been combined into cleanup artists before rigging was a thing. Digital animation also created jobs; scene planning and compositing among them. I would argue that a lot of the jobs you mean - bg painters being one example, and rough animators another (considering that good rigged animation needs a solid set of roughs), still exist on rigged productions, and still need teams of multiple people; fx animation on rigged productions still exists. Departments are smaller due to corporate greed generally, rather than due to rigging specifically.

As a team of 8 in my third year, it still took us 9 months of working 12 hour days to create an animated short of 4 min length; and that's with hybrid rigged and hand drawn digital animation. You're exaggerating the impact this tech has had; and in addition to this, traditional productions still exist. There has always been higher budget and lower budget brackets of animation; now - lower budget shows aren't "limited mouth-only anim (of the likes of early Hannah Barbera) with barely any bg and a lot of errors", but instead "rigged". One is not inherently worse than the other, they're both lower budget solutions.

It's also true that tech will inevitably change the job market, but I believe it's different with genAI because genAI was created without the consent of artists, using our stolen work, with an aim to replace us completely (and writers, and actors). There's a reason why every union contract worth its salt contains protections against AI on a scale that it doesn't against, say, rigging. It's exploitative, unethical, unethically sourced and trained, and created by people who call artists "drawslaves" and want us to get "real" jobs. The scale of the upheaval is huge here, it's not "restructure a department", it's layoffs in the thousands and NO new jobs for artists. And to reiterate, GenAI was made as a replacer, not an aid; why would people (that make it and support it) use it to harass artists and threaten us with replacement otherwise? Artists that have spoken out have had models train exclusively on their work used to show them they're replaceable as a tactic to harm or threaten them.

To use genAI in its current iteration, in my opinion, is to ignore the vastly greater negative impact it has caused and continues to cause, so yes, you're either with the people this unchecked tech has harmed, or against them, until robust regulations are made and/or genAI as a tool can be completely ethically sourced. I had expected more solidarity from artists generally when writing the ask, but now I realise that indeed some artists, educated ones, are standing on the side that wants to make them obsolete.

And also rigs aren't made using child sexual exploitation material and ppl's private medical records.

This is all I have time for (I'd rather be making art), so I'm calling it here. Have a nice night.

What I don't get is that other your support of AI image generation, you're SO smart and well read and concerned with ethics. I genuinely looked up to you! So, what, ethics for everyone except for artists, or what? Is animation (my industry, so maybe I care more than the average person) too juvenile and simplistic a medium for you to care about its extinction at the hands of CEOs endorsing AI? This might sound juvenile too, but I'm kinda devastated, because I genuinely thought you were cool. You're either with artists or against us imho, on an issue as large as this, when already the layoffs in the industry are insurmountable for many, despite ongoing attempts to unionize. That user called someone a fascist for pointing this out, too. I guess both of you feel that way about those of us involved in class action lawsuits against AI image generation software.

i can't speak for anyone else or the things they've said or think of anyone. that said:

1. you should not look up to people on the computer. i'm just a girl running a silly little blog.

2. i am an artist across multiple mediums. the 'no true scotsman' bit where 'artists' are people who agree with you and you can discount anyone disagrees with you as 'not an artist' and therefore fundamentally unsympathetic to artists will make it very difficult to actually engage in substantive discussion.

3. i've stated my positions on this many times but i'll do it one more: i support unionization and industrial action. i support working class artists extracting safeguards from their employers against their immiseration by the introduction of AI technology into the work flow (i just made a post about this funnily enough). i think it is Bad for studio execs or publishers or whoever to replace artists with LLMs. However,

4. this is not a unique feature of AI or a unique evil built into the technology. this is just the nature of any technological advance under capitalism, that it will be used to increase productivity, which will push people out of work and use the increased competition for jobs to leverage that precarity into lower wages and worse conditions. the solution to this is not to oppose all advances in technology forever--the solution is to change the economic system under which technologies are leveraged for profit instead of general wellbeing.

5. this all said anyone involved in a class action lawsuit over AI is an enemy of art and everything i value in the world, because these lawsuits are all founded in ridiculous copyright claims that, if legitimated in court, would be cataclysmic for all transformative art--a victory for any of these spurious boondoggles would set a precedent that the bar for '''infringement''' is met by a process that is orders of magnitude less derivative than collage, sampling, found art, cut-ups, and even simple homage and reference. whatever windmills they think they are going to defeat, these people are crusading for the biggest expansion of copyright regime since mickey mouse and anyone who cares at all about art and creativity flourishing should hope they fail.

[bgboydphoto]

Composite showing the path of the plane dropping the fire retardant (notice how close it is to the ground!) 📷 Canon EOS 6D Mark II 🔭 EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM 📋 400mm | 1/2000s | f/5.6 | ISO-100 📅 June 2023 🏜 Tucson, AZ https://bgboydphoto.com/photos/ © 2023 BG Boyd Photography

[sysig]

Not too bad for a first attempt

[ryuucae]

so excited for s2