Justin Gerard
patreon
Pencil Pests, Bounty Hunters and Terrible Betrayals
🕑 Added 2024-06-22 14:00:17 +0000 UTCRecently, I have had a bit of a crisis in regards to my digital work. For anyone who has missed it, Adobe has betrayed the art community by first launching its own AI art software, then changing its Terms of Service to allow it to train that AI art software off of its user's data without their consent. Essentially, they are stealing our work to build a set of AI tools with the goal of making human artists obsolete. While Adobe eventually walked back some of the more egregious aspects of this new policy, they left the door open for themselves to still do it, suggesting that, they've ALREADY done it, and are now merely looking for legal cover when they fully implement it. (Just like DeviantArt did when they launched their AI...) It is an incredibly disappointing move by a company I have used and trusted for almost 3 decades. It is a BETRAYAL. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on them since, after all, EVERY company who CAN steal our work to make an AI, IS already stealing our work. It cannot be stopped at this point. But we don’t have to go quietly into the night, and we don’t have to make it easy. Glaze and Nightshade and Cara and Krita and all the ways we are switching right now, and protesting this in what ways we can. I don’t know what to make of it all yet, but I am so disappointed and perplexed by this that I’m giving up on digital media for awhile, and going back to exclusively traditionally-made work for the foreseeable future.
Now this leaves me in a pickle as far as the Martian of the Month project goes. It was always meant to be a primarily digital project. To square this circle, I am going to do a few things: First, MORE traditionally-drawn concept sheets! The page above features a familiar layout of alien creatures. These pages have become the thing I enjoy the most about the series and this seems like a great opportunity to lean into making more of them, with the goal of an eventual alien sketchbook in mind.
Second, I'd like to start expanding these concept sheets to include the more complex characters. Which brings me to the next phase in the Martian Series: THE BOUNTY HUNTERS.
Our first one here, is a psychopathic, murderous space cat, "The Manticore".
In the game you can expect to occasionally run afoul of bounty hunters like the Manticore, and will be hunted by them through asteroid fields and spacestations. They are typically wildly overpowered, (as seen by its ludicrous array of weapons). Flight is preferable to fight with these characters, at least until much later on.
These concept art spreads, while not in color for awhile, will give me a chance to explore the tech of this world, as I develop out the more complex characters and the shape languages for each one, as seen in their armor, weapons, gear, and little helper drones. At some point we will do some votes on which ones we might do some watercolor studies of as well.
While this month's characters were all about rage and fury, next month's will focus on some killers who are much more cold-blooded:
In closing, the bigger discussion on what to do about unethical companies is just getting started. AI has come for our souls and we are all having to decide wether we will fight it, embrace it, or simply ignore it. I look forward to discussing it here and on Twitch with you as I work through it all in my own head. In the meantime, I plan to dig out the old-school pencils and watercolors to keep making monsters.
Comments
Lance Red
Great to hear your conversation with Dan tonight. I missed the first 20 minutes or so, but really enjoyed the rest. It was great to hear the thoughts of two artists I greatly respect who are also dealing with this issue. I've caught myself stressing about it, which in turn has hurt my art production. But I love the thought of pairing down and focusing on community and collectors versus the giant social mob game. And just hearing you both talk about it help me to process it all a little bit, and not let it be this looming unknown stressful monster. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts tonight.
Justin Gerard
Should be back this Wednesday at 10am doing some oil painting! I’ll also be doing a talk with Dan Dos Santos Thursday night for muddycolors on ai that should be pretty interesting
Lance Red
Feeling similar right now Justin and I plan to continue to shift to more and more back to full traditional when possible with work. When are you streaming on Twitch next? I have not been able to catch many live episodes as of late, but am curious to hear your discourse on dealing with the pressure of AI.
Justin Gerard
Thanks Daria! Glad to hear it! And yes, I do hope we will be able to start up some LetsDrawMonsters-style events with traditional media soon! At the moment it is looking like it will be August (after my kids are back in school and it is easier to livestream) and hopefully for several months after that.
Daria Gallyamova
Your traditional pencil drawings are always my favourite and I love your oil and watercolour paintings! I switched from digital to traditional art myself a while ago, mostly because of ai, but also because, as it turned out, I just purely enjoy working with pencils and paints on a real paper - it's so different compare to digital art. But I'm a beginner artist, so I guess the transition is much more easier for me. Now I'm trying all these different mediums - acrylics, graphite, color pencils, watercolor to understand what I like the most, and it's so fun! But I'm afraid of the oil paints, honestly speaking, working with oil paint looks incredibly complicate :) So I'm really looking forward to see more of your traditional work and maybe some traditional challenges like Let's draw monsters, but in traditional mediums!
Justin Gerard
Thank you Jameela! And I am very excited to see a desktop version of Procreate as well!
Jameela Wahlgren
I'm really proud of you and other artists for refusing to work with companies who use AI. I'm ditching Photoshop as well and can't wait for Procreate to launch their desktop app!
Justin Gerard
Thanks Nico! I did read that! And while it is indeed encouraging that they clarified their position in the new ToS, it still leaves me with very low trust for them. Especially since they were forcing people to agree to the new terms without any option to disagree during that recent update. It felt really evil. And I was left with the feeling of, if they changed it once, they could do it again. But wether they are evil, or wether it was just an innocent misunderstanding, I think it is good for the art community at large to be clear with these companies that we take these privacy and rights concerns very seriously. (But I also very much hope you are right about it because I love and will miss Photoshop)
Nicolò Rigobello
Hi Justin! Wonderful works as always. And about the Adobe problem: they updated their Terms of Use, take a look on their site. They never meant to steal works (that part about licensing exist since 2014) but the Terms of Use were written really really bad. They updated it with more clarifications! I was concerned and angry too, but after a deep search everything was more clear. I hope this will help you!
