Not all mustard is AI

 The influence of AI is growing so rapidly that it is also permeating our capability and willingness to trust, to believe, and, as a result, to care about the methods artists follow, or claim to follow. Your spidey senses kick off, and before you accept anything as original art online, it is at risk of being labeled AI first. Especially if you don't know the artist, the artist doesn't fully disclose the employed art production methods, or we, collectively, have been burned before after trusting an artist who turns out to be one of the new AI whisperers. Eventually, everything will fall into place, and nobody will care as much, but the right attitude during this long period of transition and adaptability is to be transparent, or in other words, be honest.

On this blog, for example, I have been discussing my methods, posting pictures of the process, and calling everything exactly what it is. Original art, AI, or a mix of both. I believe AI can be an assistant in some cases, but I'm fully aware it doesn't work that way for everyone. For example, there are cases such as Netflix having already used AI to generate scenes that, in another way, would have been costly to produce. Nobody cares if it was full AI as long as it was visually compelling. 

The main subject so far has been a moral, ethical one. People are trying to take advantage of AI, but they are also afraid of its moral and ethical consequences. Now, reduced to my microcosms, I find AI is the greatest possible art assistant and visual reference available. I can use it as an exact reference, interpretative reference, or even as a completely abstract reference. 

There are, of course, other instances where I have created art completely unrelated to AI, where an idea has come to me and I have found a more organic way to give it shape. In the collection of images below, I visually illustrate how my methods worked prior to my full adoption of AI: I would normally take a picture. In this case, I held a mustard container in my own hand, then projected the image onto paper, traced it with a mechanical pencil, and proceeded to fully color it with colored pencils and a few Posca marker touches. 

Sadly, I'm aware that this method, this process, is something that I may not do as often again. I realized that AI is generating this type of photographic image and more, so I don't see the point in spending extra time figuring out composition. On the other hand, I suppose that in the near future, organic artists and classic artists will be more scarce than they were in the past, but they will also be more valued and appreciated. In any case, as long as more art is available, all will be well. For me, it's not necessarily a matter of ethics, belief, or acceptance; there is also another factor that weighs in, and it's entertainment. If it's fun to do, means no harm, and is good and legal, I can safely continue creating art the way I please.