#12 Really, Really Not From Texas

RealityJockey on March 24, 2024

I feel I need to fess up on one aspect of this comic: as much as I spent an awful lot of time digitally painting and shaping and coaxing the images I wanted, the poster of Count Rugen is indeed the one thing that's an AI-generated component, and otherwise untouched by human hands (digital or otherwise).

It's been a running gag among artists that the Great Mediocrity Engine, this first generation of AI which was founded on fairly ethically dodgy Web-scraping practices, always leaves telltale signs behind it. Artists who touch very minimally on AI assists—mainly for stock art or textures, as I've done with the subtle wallpaper backing my hand-crafted scenes, can usually avoid the worst of it through observation, judgment, good corrective techniques, and creativity—all the things that make them human artists in the first place.

The divide is really starting to show between people who start and finish all their work by hand, even if AI enters a small part of their process, versus the people who just mash the “generate” button and are forced to take whatever image they're given.

The Count Rugen poster I've taken directly from an AI generated image just as an in-joke to human artists that no matter how powerful an AI is, it still can't consistently draw people with the right number of fingers.

For reference, I attach the following, just to round out the Princess Bride experience in this week's issue: