WEBCOMICS! (read Them) 😎 A Small Dedication To The Webcomics That Have Shaped Our Indie Spheres For

Started to play AFK Journey. I thought these two should interact somehow. Maybe be friends or something

Widdle buddy !

I started digital art two years ago(doing art barely 3y) so a newbie, in past bc I wasn't good at art it was easier to get better, now I've been struggling for a while, i don't get better than last time(coloring and it lacks creativity). I feel stuck in a loop. so idk any tip I can get better? what artists do to get more creative?

Hey!

So I go through this a lot as well and what always helps me is to just draw something completely out of your comfort zone, something you've never drawn before. For example: You enjoy drawing people? Go fill a sketchbook page with only cars. You enjoy drawing dogs? Go fill a whole sketchbook page with toothbrushes.

Why do I do this? Because for me there's no expectations. I've never drawn this thing before so obviously it's gonna be shit in the beginning. But this way you will see your improvement so quickly. The first car you draw will look shit, but once you've filled a whole sketchbook page with just cars, the next one you draw will 100% look a lot better than the first one. While drawing them over and over again, you will subconsciously learn how a cars shape works.

And you can surprisingly improve your overall art by doing these studies of random things, because in the end all you need to know as an artist is how shapes work and interact with each other.

Just try something new, allow yourself to just learn and forgive yourself if something doesn't work out the way you want. You learn the most from mistakes after all!

whatever you say bucky

My cat eats moths. She needs us to help her catch them tho.

Oops I played all of tangle tower in one sitting and now I am obsessed

a lot of people mentioned wanting to draw her so i thought i'd make a little ref with some insight into the design process.

A little anthro bat to brighten my day !

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.

what a lovely late-impressionist piece blended with evocative leyendecker-esque themes! why haven't you ever heard of this artist before? surely tumblr would be all over an artist like this. who is justin brown?

your two options from here are to do a search for the name, or a reverse image search. i prefer reverse image searching, particularly when it comes to a common name like "justin brown". so what does that net?

Immediately, without looking at any text, something is wrong: it barely exists. an actual historical piece would turn up numerous results from websites individually discussing the piece, but no such discussions are taking place. Looking at the text, though, does show the source-- and at least in this case, the creator was honest about their medium.

But let's also look at the "exact matches", in case a source doesn't make itself apparent in the initial sidebar results like this.

This section will often tell you post dates of images, and here it can be seen that the very first iteration of the image was posted 15 days ago. It did not exist online prior to that.

Seeing how long an unsourced image has been floating around is a skill applicable to more than just generative images! See a cool image of an artifact or other intriguing item with a vivid caption? Reverse search it! If all the results are paired with that caption and only go back a few months, you might just have viral facebook spam.

Sometimes generative creators are dishonest about their medium and do not tag it like in the example, so that's when establishing "jpeg provenance" becomes important. While it can be a little trickier to determine if someone is using generative images and not admitting to it if they aren't trying to pass it off as a classic, something to consider is the age of their account and the frequency with which they post. Here are some account red flags:

-Did they only start posting art after 2022, or if they did before, did their style/skill level WILDLY change? Not gradual improvement-- I'm talking amateur graphite portraits straight into complex digital renders. Everyone starts somewhere, newness is not a red flag alone; it's newness combined with existing in a vacuum away from any community.

-Do they post fully-finished paintings several times a week? -Do many of these paintings seem iterative of a similar theme or subject matter ("three well-dressed young men face each other under shade and dappled sunlight")?

-Does their style change in inconsistent ways? An artist that can swap between painting like Drew Struzan and Hokusai should be pretty well known, right? Why is no one hyping this guy?!

-Do they have social media besides the source instagram? If so, what are they posting about? Are there any WIPs? Doodles? Interactions with other artists? Gallery dates? 3am self-doubt posts? Or is it all self-promo? Crypto? Seemingly nothing art-related at all for someone pushing out 3 weekly paintings?

Basically, if it's important to you to omit this stuff when you curate, please don't just smash reblog if the source doesn't seem to be the OP themselves. Seeking out sources was important even before this became an issue, now it is more than ever.

peace n love

rb this with ur opinion on this shade of pink:

Just finished Sacred Bodies by @sticksandsharks . What a read. Ah what a read !!!