What To Make Of AI Art?

So AI is a thing now, for better or worse, it's here and it's our job to deal with it as best we can. One of the many uses of AI now on the horizon is AI Art as seen above. So what to do about AI Art? Is it a good thing? Bad thing? Some think it's a horrible thing, and others disagree, so where do I line up? Let's dive in and talk;

So I'm gonna admit I'm of two minds about AI Art, for starters there are MANY artists who are absolutely amazing in every single way possible Jourd4n, Jago, JP Cortes, Blackfury Art, J.G. Jones, J. Scott Campbell, and of course the always impressive Bruce Timm. Being an artist myself I can totally understand why so many artists are against AI-generated art as it stands to undercut the entire artistic process and ultimately remove the soul and passion from any project. I'm a weirdo when it comes to art if that makes sense, I refuse to draw fan art of other people's characters as I see it to be an intense lack of creativity. I'll never understand fanart unless it's conceptual fanart (like drawing Link as a girl or Batman in a Star Trek uniform) but just drawing a picture of Link or Batman just because...yeah, no thanks, yuck. Everything I draw I seek to do is 100% from my own mind, with an influence here and there but ultimately the characters are mine. My art style has its own flavor as many art styles do and like many artists, I need to improve...because as it stands I absolutely suck at drawing.

I wanted a Persona style crew playing a trading card game

Now every artist has their own style and depending on the mood you're going for that style may or may not work...I was told my artwork looked like something from "Adventure Time"...which is not the feel I was going for...so mission failed. So when it comes to my own personal artwork I'm seeking to improve and get better my only issue is I have a lack of reason to draw. I'm not my heroes who are able to draw money for their work like Mike Birchall whose art is very simple and yet oddly complex. And the simplistic nature of the artwork actually brings much more gravitas to the story in my humble opinion. I respect art a great deal. As I've said before my biggest issue when it comes to art is drawing women, I love drawing women because I haven't been able to draw them for a long time so they're still new for me to draw.

I'm talking a lot about drawing because back in the day and much to my humiliation I tried to make a card game and I just decided to draw some artwork for the cards so there would be something on the cards to make them look presentable. While I was researching for this project I was searching for artists who I believed fit the mood of what I was going for, a group called  Gunship Revolution, they did some artwork for another indie game on Kickstarter and I decided to get into contact with them for prices. Needless to say, they were not cheap, and nor am I saying they should have been. BUT, if something like AI Art was available to me back then...I'd have had more presentable cards with better placeholder art rather than spending hours drawing pictures that were only going to be reference tools for someone else in the future anyway.

And this is where I fall when it comes to AI Art, as a cost-saving method for upstarts who can't afford an artist and just need to get some placeholders until they can afford the real deal, I totally understand, if you're like me and just wanna goof off and see what AI can generate for you, sure. But, for any professional endeavor, I'm gonna wanna have a personal touch, someone I can go back and forth with. Now granted, personality-wise I'm a control freak so AI is appealing to be in the regard of I won't have to be at the mercy of someone else's interpretation of what I want, but that's just me. However, for those who generate AI-Art, I refuse to call artists, all you do is type in a prompt and the generator creates an image of what it thinks you want, unless you put drawing utensil to drawing apparatus YOU ARE NOT AN ARTIST! And that's a line I will never cross. So if you need some placeholder art, or just wanna see something conceptually...like a scene from a movie you're imagining and just wanna visualize OR if you just wanna have fun, go nuts. AI Art will never be able to match real art or real artists. Every artist has their own unique flavor but I doubt AI Art will replace real artists, at least not anytime soon, not saying it can't happen...but I doubt it's coming and still with artists being able to do their own thing and create their own characters and stories, I doubt they'll be replaced. Those are my thoughts. Lemme know what you guys think, catch you next time.