surodyTG
patreon
Update, Refunds and more...
🕑 Added 2023-09-04 23:45:03 +0000 UTCHi everyone, I’m alive and healthy. I don’t want to do a deep dive into how I feel and what keeps me back but I want to assure you that there will be animations and comics by me again and with October and Halloween nearing my inspiration and motivation keeps increasing. I can’t tell you a exact date when I’ll proceed updating my on-going projects but I’ll try it every day. I’m keeping my Trello transparent, so just in case you’re curious:
https://trello.com/b/GBOe3WzL/weekly-work-schedule-surody
Refunds:
In terms of refunds it’s as always, I’ll refund everybody besides first time Ultimate Tier pledges.
People who asked for a refund in the previous months don’t have to ask again. I’ve a list and keep refunding as long as the content drought keeps going. People who requested should’ve already gotten a refund for August. I’m not sure if you get a mail when I refund but if I missed someone, please let me know. If you didn't request a refund the past months but you'd like to, please let me know in a PM.
New kind of content (maybe?):
I put a decent amount of time in researching AI tools in the previous months.
(This is not a excuse for no content)
I was looking how to potentially utilize it and it’s limitations. I don’t think in terms of animations or comics AI is gonna replace actual artistic work anytime soon because the limitations are way too significant. This includes certain poses, expression range, look direction, frame consistency during animations (flickering) and more.
I’ll be honest, when I see pure AI posts on Reddit for example, and they have no consistency at all in terms of background and clothing but still get more likes than anything I post on Twitter or Deviantart (even animations and works in general I put in like tens or even hundreds of work hours), it’s quite discouraging. There seems to be A LOT of people who actually like this sort of content. I also saw a couple of TG artists who reported a decline in supporter activity which is most likely a follow up of this sort of content emerging. I don’t plan to emulate these kind of „works“ but I’m playing around with idea to provide certain content which is mostly done with AI.
My current opinion about AI is as follows:
If someone can provide something unique with AI which you usually can’t find created by any artist, it gains some right to exist. This is easier with niche genres like TG and TF because there’s not even 0.1% of artists producing high quality content compared to something like rule34 in general.
I tried to engineer a certain look which doesn’t really emulate some specific artist and isn’t simply just going for hyperrealism. I say engineer because it’s way above just typing in a few words in the prompt.^^ I aimed for semi-realism with a certain uncanniness to it to make it look more like high quality CGI than just a photo.
I want to highlight that even if I start doing this sort of content, this is supposed to be just for the bronze tier, which means it’s considered „bonus“ content. I don't plan to stop doing comics/animations the usual way and this won’t be some cheap excuse to stop providing refunds during months where I won’t do anything else if at all. My thought behind it is to provide more frequently „something“. If I’d try to recreate those AI images I’m planning completely from ground (with assets), this’d take me days just for one pin-up and when I jump back on animations and comics this wouldn’t be sustainable at all.
I want to make certain themed weekly days like „TGTuesday“, „TFThursday“, maybe even something fancy like a furry themed day if there's interest but I‘ll provide example pictures with a poll where you can tell me your opinion shortly.
Anyways, I think that's enough text for now.^^
As always a big ❤️THANK YOU❤️ to every supporter. I hope you're well and stay healthy.
Comments
Surody
Thank you so much. It's undeserved but really appreciated.
Yomama227
I love your honesty and transparency Surody. It is because of such I will never ask for a refund. Stay the course my friend. Your work is incredible and one of a kind!!! Woot!!!
W C Purdy
I'm sorry but I find the entire concept of AI generated images to be ethically bankrupt. If it's something you end up doing regularly I'll be rescinding my donations.
