eye_of_toad: digital edit of original marker drawing (weird eyes)
I have been looking at apartments and houses lately. (I haven't even narrowed down what state I want to move to, but as long as I'm moving somewhere I figured it doesn't hurt to look around. 50/50 chance I play it safe and just rent a different apartment across town, but who knows.)

Anyway, tripped over this horror and it reminded me that I had an AI rant in mind.

AI images being abused for misleading real estate listings )

Anyway here's the rant I've been meaning to make. (And just so you know how long I've been planning to get around to posting about this eventually, my current streak on Duolingo is 107.)



Why does the owl have a face on its butt?

I have the Duolingo widget installed to remind me to keep my streak going and it changes images several times a day to attract your attention and one of the images that cycles through is this one.

First thought, gotta be AI. Big company can't be bothered to pay real human artists for a handful of images. Jerks. But then here's where the real rant comes in. It occurred to me that there's no way to prove this isn't by a human because long before AI, human artists would do weird shit. A human artist might very well decide to draw an extra face on the owl's butt to signify ... okay, I have no idea what that would signify. Duo is busy and and being pulled in two directions at once? (Except Duo also clearly looks bored.) Duo is always watching you? I don't know.

But the point is that the established role here is that artists do weird shit and art critics debate what the deeper meaning is.

Except now, I think I'm hesitant to put as much weird shit out there. Draw a person with too many ears or eyes or fingers or whatever and people are just going to assume it's a "fake" AI image. Maybe I just felt like drawing extra ears today? Artists should be allowed to be weird if they want to be.

I'm sort of dreading the day a youngling dismisses Salvador Dali as "obvious AI". It's only a matter of time.
eye_of_toad: hand-drawn doodle (Default)
I keep meaning to make a post about art supplies. Not like formal reviews, but just notes of what I liked and will buy again and what I will definitely *not* buy again and what didn't really work for me but might for others.

Art supplies are probably my biggest impulse-purchase expense after junk food. (The fact that I have likely spent more on Doritos and Oreos than on markers and sketchbooks, is itself pretty sad, but probably true.)

I just ordered two more sketchbooks that I absolutely do not need. (Why am I so compelled to buy sketchbooks faster than I can fill them up?)

And I've recently thrown out a few things (two markers for being defective, which I mentioned in a prior post plus one marker that I just used up) which had me thinking. I've also misplaced a favorite pen that didn't even register as being a favorite until I couldn't find it.

But every time I think about writing a post about art supplies I think to myself that I should take pictures, which involves uploading pictures, and I'm lazy and it never happens. So this is me nagging myself to do it already.

Pictures to upload: Tombow markers (Tombow makes a ton of things that are completely unlike each other so I kind of need a visual to be able to make clear "this one not that one".

things to discuss...

alcohol markers: Copic vs Blick vs all the others, brush tip vs bullet tip (I'm finding myself preferring the hard tip instead of the brush tip which seems to be the opposite of most art YouTubers that I watch).

current favorites: Fudenosuke pen, Le Pen, 4H pencil, erasable colored pencils, mechanical pencil, Talens sketchbook, my trusty Pilot pens...

things I hate: I'm so rageful about Crescent Rendr sketchbooks. If I hated everything about them, I wouldn't hate them so much. But I'm beyond annoyed that I like the paper and hate the binding so much that I can't stand to draw in them. It's like they are taunting me.

Oh and I recently gave away a couple of Pentel Pocket Brush Pens to a friend because I just cannot get the hang of drawing with a soft brush. (I kept the black one the idea of continuing to practice in the future, but I gave away the sepia and dark gray.)

There was more than this. So much more than this. But I'm too unfocused to sort it out and I need to get ready for work.

Should I just update this as one big masterpost discussion of art supplies or should each topic get its own post?

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