cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/24295950
Source (Bluesky)
this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Fuck AI
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Give digital art programs a try. There's plenty of free alternatives to the big subscription model vultures out there, there's GIMP for image editing, Krita for drawing, Blender for 3D, DaVinci Resolve for video editing, Audacity and Pro Tools Free for sound recording and editing, you can even make modular synths using VCV Rack. And if you like rum and eye patches theres versions of the big players out there too.
I am absolutely shit at drawing, but professionally I make 3d animations, having drawing skills helps, but it's not necessary to learn any one of these.
I am even more terrible at those than I am with physical media.
It def takes some practice to get into these programs but many of them have really good tutorial series geared toward beginners. As far as my experience, in Blender you have the Donut Series put out by Blender Guru that takes you from "I've never even heard of blender" to "I've made a really good looking donut." By the end of the series.
You're not alone. Sorry all these pricks think you just haven't tried.
I wish to formally apologize for offering friendly advice on the internet, maybe I should have been even more of an apparent prick than I was and told op to give up forever on their desire to be more creative and told op to eat shit and die.
Or you could not think less of someone for using a tool that you don't need to express their creativity.
I don't think less of OP, if I did, I wouldn't be be giving suggestions for freely accessible digital art programs of all different kinds and not even limiting myself to just visual mediums.
All I want to do is offer words of encouragement to go and try some of these. They're free programs, what's the harm in encouraging someone to give them a try?
Sorry, I assumed you were one of the people who doesn't think using AI tools is a valid way to express one's self. In hindsight, you never said things to that effect.
You aren't one of the pricks I was referring to, I should have checked before replying to your comment. But you gotta admit, there are a lot of people who think anyone who uses AI tools is a loser, and will say all kinds of things to invalidate those who use AI.
Everyone is terrible when they start. You can get better if you practice over time.
You might not ever draw the next big masterpiece, but if you practice you will get better.
All it takes is 15-30 minutes a day.
I'm 47. I have tried. My problem isn't inputting pixels, I can do that. I've done drafting with paper and pencil and with CAD tools (I'm an engineer). My problem is knowing where to put the pixels/lines for the thing I want to create (which I can do for a schematic, but not for anything that is to have any realism. I've never had a problem with schematics. I can make a drawing that is very clear in terms of all functional aspects).
I have ideas, I am simply not good at implementation. AI tools allow me to express my ideas. And if you think I'm less than for that, you can bite my shiny metal ass, because I'm not creating for you. I'm creating for me, and sometimes for people I'm close to (usually to make them laugh).
There are definitely exceptions
(He's 2 years old)
Creative skill and imagination. It is inherent to art.
Even the shittiest executed art is art. Your perception of art is skewed by the commodification of it through capitalist societies. I sincerely implore you to take up any kind of art that does not require AI if you're truly interested in expressing yourself.
It really is just persistence and accepting a certain amount of "I'm so bad at art" for eternity. Just make something, draw, paint or whatever. Look for things that motivate you to make stuff and learn to do it anyway, sucking is the first step to being kinda good at something.
A class or two can help. The feedback from an instructor can help you figure out where you are going wrong.
It’s also 100% accepting that you will be terrible. It just has to be fun even when it’s terrible.
Yeah, self-critique is important but you can never see everything
Have you considered collage? You just need some mod podge, a few foam brushes, and magazines/random print material. There’s still lots of room for skill and exploration, but there’s not a technical barrier to entry.
I never realized it, but isn't a collage basically the analog version of AI art, except in this case it's using the literal other art of people rather than learning from it and blending to make something new? Literally using other pictures to make a picture.
The art and challenge of collage is changing the context. Consider how the Avalanches work is entirely samples - but there’s something there that was not in the constituent parts.
Or video collage. YouTube Poops are another example of that kind of finding something new in what was already there - what about Robotnik’s PINGAS.
I posted a project on c/artshare which is chunks of a Christian courtship manual which I drowned in paint and then chopped out the most fucked up parts from. I don’t think that is something AI would do trained on a model of pop Christian literature - that’s something I a person with context and reactions to that literature would do. An AI can create pictures that might look nice, but they don’t have meaning. Art for me prioritizes meaning. - but I’m the kind of weirdo that burst into tears when I saw the replica of Fountain at the Tate.
But you were talking specifically about a static medium, not video or music, which are not static mediums. We were also discussing image gen AI, not video gen etc.
Most people also don't consider video or music edits collage either, and call them something else. Because they use different skills and are different mediums.
Also, you do realize we're still talking about current AI generation right? There doesn't exist an AI that executes processes on it's own (maybe) yet. So your whole thing wasn't relevant either, really, in any way more than saying a piece of paper will spontaneously draw something on itself.
That said, you can, using prompts, training, guidance steps, etc, actually do exactly what you did in a digital format, using a diffusion image generation AI. You can get more specific by using it + Gimp.
Edit: and I mean, you still are using someone else's art to create what you made.
I guess - ultimately, as a pragmatic/materialist person, I’d like to see something material. An example of good AI art. Something creative, something unique, something conveying some kind of deeper idea. Something like Hannah Höch?
Here’s a current collage project of mine that is maybe 25% done. The design of the coloring pages, the Lisa Frank stickers, the patterns on the paper - these are all not mine in design. But I think they have been demonstrably altered in a way that make them different.
I guess the old adage in literary endeavors is “show, don’t tell.” I want to see someone really use AI as an art form, but I’m just not seeing things that really come across as having much thought in them.
I (and my actual artist wife, whose opinion on this I value more) view AI image generators as a tool.
I'd say akin to a camera. Photography is still an art form today, but you see MANY pictures that aren't art too. Because it's now accessable and easy to use.
AI image generators is much the same, in that it's very accessable, and so you do see a lot of actual slop.
But I've seen some techniques that are either only possible with AI (functional QR code art) or use AI as only part of a process (fractals mixed in with perhaps Photoshop/Krita/Gimp and then hand printed or such).
Of course most importantly, I think, is that an AI image generator doesn't stop people from making art. You are free to do draw, make collage, create sculptures, etc. People who use it purely to make a thing they want to see, are nearly always, if not always, people who wouldn't have wanted to make it themselves in the first place (or can't). Much like how you might get a craving for a pizza but might just get a cheap frozen one rather than making one yourself from scratch (which can be very expensive too).
Unlike the example, if you want a picture of a painting, a piece of paper and a free pencil won't achieve that - you still do need the acrylics (assuming you're not wanting something that has specific colors outside of acrylic paints like tempera), canvas, a stand, and of course, months to years of skill depending on natural talent. Much like it you want a pizza from true scratch, you need to know not only how to proof dough and bake, but grow wheat, husking and milling it, grow tomatoes, turn milk into cheese, cure meat, etc.
Or you can but a frozen pizza created by a machine. It won't be as good, but it'll be pizza and takes a fraction of the time.
Oh, and he's an example of the QR code AI art I mentioned which a human can't do by hand:
I'm bad at visual art also (always was into audio) but for me the best thing is to take a couple pictures, and start modifying them with gimp. This is a lot easier than starting from nothing. I make all my album covers this way, usually from A few irl pictures I took and then added effects to. They often end up pretty sweet