ethics of making AI images aside, I do find a bit amusing the kinds of sob stories and mental gymnastics people make up to pretend like drawing is this super technical skill with an impossibly high barrier of entry when its like one of the first hobbies toddlers pick up
suddenly a lot of people think they got the next Lord of the Rings in their head but they were never able to turn their stories into anything tangible because the evil elitist artists are hogging all the talent and skill and they need a bajilion years of training or something as if one of the most popular manga and anime of the past decade wasn't made by a guy that draws like this
Pulling this out of my tags but for real one of the best webcomics(and also best story in general) I have ever read started out looking like this:
You do not have to be Michaelangelo to make art, just make it. Also, obligatory quote from my good man Bob Ross:
Sorry to pull this out of the tags also but I absolutely agree and wanted to elaborate further, bcs like another reason I genuinely think anyone who is interested in art but feels like they suck too much to make it should really just stay away from AI and actually just give drawing a chance is because AI cannot create new art styles. It can only make copies of what you put into it, so much so that if you want something in a specific style you have to tell it the name of the artist you want it to mimic because it cannot make something that doesn't already exist. If all you ever fed it were drawings of stick figures that's all it would ever know how to do.
But humans can make new art styles, every person's art is unique. And when it comes to ONE(author/artist behind Mob Psycho 100 and One Punch Man) and Rich Berlew(author and artist of Order of the Stick), if these guys never just started making their comics we wouldn't have ever been able to see these expressive, funny, strange, and just all around captivating pieces of art!
The image I used of Order of the Stick isn't actually exactly what it looked like at this start, this is:
And THIS is what Order of the Stick looks like now:
And while it does still look similar, it's clear how much Burlew has improved and grown comfortable in his unique artstyle, how far he's come in the last 21 years. The lighting, the line art, the panel layout, all of it has improved while still essentially just being stick figures. And I cannot even begin to describe how much I fucking LOVE the way this comic looks.
Switching to ONE, his art started out super rough
And while One Punch Man did get a new artist...I genuinely think the "better" art has lost a lot of the charm the original had. I'm so glad that ONE did Mob Psycho 100 himself and that the anime mimicked his style rather than trying to make it look more standard like OPM did, because my god, this guy's stuff conveys humor in a way that is as brilliant as it is unique. It's rough, but the roughness doesn't take away from the impact or emotions, it honestly adds to them, and overall it's incredible to see how much ONE has improved, but also how much it still looks like his art:
I do not want to live in a world where ONE and Rich Burlew didn't make their comics because they were too scared of their art looking bad. I don't want to live in a world without these stories and these dynamic and original art styles. Burlew's art legit has given me confidence, I always felt bad that when I finished and colored my art all my lines were so thick and smooth and coloring-book-esque, it's why most of what I post is like, sketches, colored or not. But after reading Order of the Stick I legit cried a little because for the first time I didn't feel bad about just doing the kind of line art that feels right to me, which looks like this:
So fr, please if you want to make art just make art. Everyone's art is unique in one way or another and if you just rely on AI all the time we'll never get to see styles like ONE and Rich Burlew's and again, I don't want to live in a world where we don't get to see all of these amazing, imperfect works of art. I want to see YOUR art, because it's yours, and the world is a better place with your art in it.
