Big post, 4 minute read.

Hey guys,

TL;DR

If you don’t have Discord, please consider setting up an account. I’m going to make a Patron-only channel to discuss the future of my art.

Some good news: All my pent up energy has mutated into some kind of art zen mode. I’ve seen the night sky fade into dawn several nights this month as I’ve toiled away at destroying my demonboys. I’ve finished all 8 images and continued working right into the next pack. In this curious state, I've created a lumberjack version of Thade that's ultra Canadian with moose antlers and a flannel shirt. I don't know how this happened -- don't ask.

Distribution of my work remains an issue, I have to solve it. Below, I list some ideas I’ve been mulling as I draw.

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The strange flipside to this AI+piracy mess is that it’s forced me to consider continuing my work offline. I could cut down my patron list to only members I trust, then let the rest of the internet burn. I’d move this small list to my own private site and ditch Patreon+social media. All future members would be wait-listed. In giving this approach serious consideration, a completely surprising, new creative energy has surged through me, overtaking the AI fire in an even bigger blaze. This notion that I could give my original art only to the people invested in my characters actually delights me. It makes me want to push my demons waaaay harder, since they’d be safe from the audience that just faps and moves on. My craving for domination has magnified. I want to absolutely obliterate my boys and leave them all just these absolutely disgusting, embarrassing messes. I feel like some eldritch god who gets off on decimating his own disciples.

Of course, reality sets in quickly enough: this ‘exclusive members’ approach would be cutting my earnings down. Maybe I could become one of those artists who just does 1-2 pieces a month, devoting more time to crafting each scene. That would also help mitigate the Ai risks of putting out too much content. Art packs need to get smaller, otherwise I’m just making more fodder for Ai to kill my career.

This is just one idea of several I’m working through. 

Another completely opposite train of thought is to pump out as much art+games as possible while art still retains any value. The assumption here is that ai will keep progressing until it kills the art industry with instant, beautiful art generation. It’s economics 101: Scarcity drives value, Ai kills scarcity. What’s a Ferrari worth if everyone and their dog has one?

Last idea is to focus more on fanart: to carefully make smaller packs in my exact style that’s already been trained on. This will probably be the simplest, easiest approach until I find a permanent solution.

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Right now, the distribution of my art packs remains an issue: I can’t safely put my art online anymore. Since my last post, I’ve had more extended talks with software engineers. Their outlook is grim. They all say not to rely on Glaze, since it can be overcome. All artists who put their faith in it risk having their newer work trained on all over again. The engineers also warn against posting anything to social media or on cloud services, since the demand for creative content for AI business to train on has skyrocketed. Many companies are happy to sell your content.

I will keep making my art packs while I grind out a solution.