{"id":2496,"date":"2023-05-15T12:39:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T16:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/so-you-love-or-hate-ai-art-heres-the-same-recommendation\/"},"modified":"2023-05-15T12:39:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T16:39:02","slug":"so-you-love-or-hate-ai-art-heres-the-same-recommendation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/so-you-love-or-hate-ai-art-heres-the-same-recommendation\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Love (or Hate) AI Art\u2026 Here’s the Same Recommendation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Roughly five months ago, I held an AI art competition related to the fantasy world I\u2019ve been building<\/a>. I was trying to peek around corners, as I often do with new technologies.<\/p>\n

Once it wrapped up, I felt a strange combination of things. It was something like one part falling in love; one part kid in a candy store; and two parts watching metaphorical birds flying overhead, harbingers of a massive forest fire on its way.<\/p>\n

This post will share some learnings, art winners with highlights, and more.<\/p>\n

There were a handful of rules for submissions<\/a>, but the bolded portions below are the most important to me:<\/p>\n

You can use any AI tools or combination of tools that you like, including\u00a0DALL\u00b7E 2<\/a>\u00a0(@OpenAI<\/a>),\u00a0Midjourney<\/a>\u00a0(@midjourney<\/a>),\u00a0Stable Diffusion<\/a>\u00a0(@StableDiffusion<\/a>),\u00a0Lexica<\/a>\u00a0(@LexicaArt<\/a>,)\u00a0NightCafe Studio<\/a>\u00a0(@NightcafeStudio<\/a>), etc. You are also allowed to do manual touch-ups and fine-tuning.\u00a0IMPORTANT<\/strong>:\u00a0You *must* use\u00a0Loom<\/a>\u00a0(@loom<\/a>) or other tech to capture your full process.<\/strong><\/em>
\u2026<\/p>\n

Selections will be based on quality, creativity, presentation of process, and more. Process is important. People should at least be able to attempt to replicate what you did. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The entire point of the competition was to create this blog post, a simple collection of how-to tutorials that can get anyone up-skilled in a short period of time. <\/strong>Even if you hate everything about AI, here\u2019s why I think it\u2019s worth spending time on this\u2026<\/p>\n

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The AI genie is out of the bottle. The more true experts I speak with, the clearer this is.<\/p>\n

No matter how one feels about AI\u2014and I have plenty of misgivings\u2014the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. This is true for hundreds of sectors and millions of people, including artists. I\u2019ve watched family members work their asses off as artists, I wanted to be a comic book penciler for 10+ years, and I\u2019ve paid traditional artists hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. It\u2019s a world that is near and dear to my heart.<\/p>\n

But\u2026 there is no going back to the way things used to be. In fact, there is no compelling way to stall things for long. So the question for me isn\u2019t \u201cHow can we stop AI art?,\u201d as I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible, but rather something like:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can artists do to get ahead of the curve?\u201d or \u201cHow might proactive artists position themselves to benefit from this?\u201d or \u201cHow can artists limit the damage of AI and carve out, or preserve, good niches for themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are dozens of other similar questions we could ask, but I think the initial answer is the same for all of them: Learn to use AI tools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To kickstart your art career, and even if you plan on using more traditional methods\u2026 learn to use AI tools<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To turbocharge your own art by streamlining mundane tasks\u2026 learn to use AI tools<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To learn the current weaknesses and blindspots of AI tools so you can plan around them\u2026 learn to use AI tools<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Most high-calibre artists have nothing to fear, many would-be artists have a lot to look forward to, and all artists have something to learn. If you would spend 10 hours at a weekend course that promised to improve the odds of a good living for the next decade, I think you should commit to spending 10 hours seriously using and scrutinizing the better AI tools. Even if you hate everything this represents, even if it\u2019s an opponent you want to defeat, this is akin to watching tape of an opponent before a boxing match. Whether you want to surf the tsunami, dive through it, or get the hell out of the way, you need to understand the wave. To do that, you need to study it, and the sooner the better. The best defense is sometimes an early offense.<\/p>\n

I hope you find this post helpful, and please leave comments with other recommendations. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll get a few gems and a boatload of screeds, but such is the spice of the Internet. <\/p>\n

This blog post is a rough draft and merely a starting point. And if you think the pace of AI development has been fast in the last six months, the next 12 months are going to make your head spin. I think the key is always returning your eyes to the road ahead of you instead of the rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n

Just a few notes on structure before we dive in:<\/p>\n

We included both \u201cWinners\u201d and \u201cHonorable Mentions,\u201d but all are included because they offered unique value or a unique approach. <\/p>\n

I heavily weighed the incorporation of character traits. As I mention again below, it\u2019s easy to make *something* pretty with AI, but to make a very *specific thing* with parameters and characteristics is much harder. For that reason, I tended to reward rougher art with better trait matching vs. polished art that used fewer traits.<\/p>\n

Some tweets are no longer live, and we\u2019ve indicated that with a comment. <\/p>\n

Special Honorable Mention<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am putting the below Twitter thread<\/a> by @JPEGHODL<\/a><\/strong> first, as the thread itself represents an excellent Midjourney<\/a> 101 tutorial for people who haven\u2019t used Discord much. This is placed here upfront, as many of the submissions use Midjourney:<\/p>\n

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Winners<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim\u2019s comments on the below:<\/strong> This fella\u2019s how-to blog post<\/a> is fantastic. Highly recommend.
Original tweet by @ironclawai<\/a>:<\/strong> https:\/\/twitter.com\/ironclawai\/status\/1604528121360826373<\/a>
Blog post with all process videos<\/strong>: https:\/\/ironclaw.me\/2022\/12\/18\/cockpunch-ai-characters-contest\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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