I am genuinely trying to get better at art. I’m not there yet (likely never will be), the lying machine is still better than me.

The context:

This is my sketch.

And this is what the ai output.

I like to think I poured my heart and soul into it. I know there are people who will tell me that I’m terrible for using ai at all. I’m also sorry if this is the wrong community to ask this question (ask reddit would delete my post instantly if I tried to post there).

Again, is this slop? I am not an artist. I drive a forklift real good, that’s my skillset. So if I were to use the ai upscaled version for my book, well, I’m asking for opinions.

  • mrmaplebar@fedia.io
    282·
    14 hours ago

    Still slop, sorry amigo! (Probably not what you want to hear, but I’m just being real…)

    If I sketch something, and have an ai upscale it for me

    That’s not an accurate description of what you did, is it?

    You didn’t simply “upscale” your drawing. You had AI turn a rough sketch into an inked, colored and shaded but otherwise incomplete piece.

    I like to think I poured my heart and soul into it.

    Yeah, I’m sure you like to think that…

    But in reality you did part 1 of a 4 part process and told a computer to do the rest. I don’t know how long you spent on your initial sketch, but in the end you relied on a gimmicky shortcut (based on the exploitation of other people’s stolen art… stuff that they REALLY poured their heart and soul into before it was unceremoniously ripped off by mega-corporations) to do at least 75% of the work. I’m being brutally honest, but at best you can only really think of it as being 25% yours.

    Again, is this slop? I am not an artist. I drive a forklift real good, that’s my skillset.

    Am I being too harsh? Why am I telling you this?

    Here’s the thing you need to understand…

    If you made that original sketch then you ARE an artist. Sure you don’t feel like you’re as good as you want to be (no artist EVER does, by the way), but you are already 10000x more of an artist than someone who writes some text and gets an AI to slop out some generic shit.

    The composition and sketch is the hardest part and you already did it. Linework (if that’s your style) is basically just tracing. Coloring is as easy as doing a kids coloring book. Shading can be a puzzle, but you’ll get it in time if you keep the light coming from the same direction.

    You spent some time doing the hard part, liked how it looked, and then instead of just cracking on with the next part, you got lazy, turned your brain off and fed it to the instant gratification machine, turning it into slop. Taking your hands off the wheel entirely, you know?

    And for what?

    Now you have a “pretty picture”, but you didn’t learn a damn thing about taking your art from sketch to lines, or coloring, or shading. And to make matters worse, you can’t even point to the picture and say “hey look at that, I MADE THAT”, like you can with the sketch.

    In the end, I’m gonna call it slop. Ethical problems aside, AI generated slop art is a dime a dozen these days. I don’t see any value in it at all. I think you have more talent for art than you know, and I hope that you keep it up and try to approach your work with more pride as a human being making something cool by hand.