I never said I gave up. I don’t get paid to illustrate dragons. I never said illustrators should give up either. There will continue to be clients who are prepare to pay for quality and creativity.
Neither of the examples here involve creativity.
I think my point is getting lost in the details. When I say “for myself” I mean I don’t share it online. I mean “privately.” In a sketchbook no one will ever see.
Obviously the majority of the work I’ve done in my life wasn’t paid for. It brought me community and lifelong friends. But now there is the risk that it will just be used to train the algorithm to replace me and people like me. There are so many people making algorithmically generated images for fun and they share it the way I shared my sketches and doodles. They want the same thing without the effort. Without the practice. Without the process or the thought.
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This you?
Seems like that’s you, yo.
The rest of us are conversing in good faith about the broader scope of this topic, not just disingenuously focusing on the minor aspect of the current market for cartoon dragons.
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Well I have been paid to illustrate dragons (for clients who needed very specific images of dragons) and I still think you’re taking a pretty defeatist position here.
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Hot-cha-cha-cha-cha!
No ai in this Singaporean dragon.
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I’m too tired to check if I’m allowed to share a link to my work, but here’s my old blog. I really slowed down when I had kids, but my daughter starts kindergarten next year and I had been looking forward to full time work again. I really loved this stuff.
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You are, especially since you’re not attempting to make any profit from sharing the link.
ETA:
YOUR WORK IS FANTASTIC; DON’T STOP.
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So you’re a guitar player who is throwing drummers under the bus because they aren’t “real musicians” while AI ramps up playing guitar?
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You have some awesome stuff in there! 
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Drum machines have their place. That place is rarely in the stuff I listen to.
The band I was in used a truck door and a tricycle among other goodies as drums. I prefer my Industrial to be completely non-computer-generated, organic, if you will, thanks very much.
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Aww. Thank you. 
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De nada; It’s really good.
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You’re right. I missed that part completely. Apologies.
I’m definitely not happy. This has been the single worst year I’ve experienced since I started. Managing my feelings around how bad this year has been as a writer has been hard. I’ve almost walked away it a few times (but starting something new is equally as daunting to me). It’s one of the big reasons I started therapy this year.
The thing that helped the most was talking to others in the community. I had fallen away from a lot of folks over the last couples of years and reconnecting with them and commiserating over how shitty it’s been has helped.
This is my what I’ve been trying. Organizing words and telling stories is good for my soul. Even if I’m the only seeing it, it still does the trick.
THIS!!!
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I said i was an artist. I didn’t say i was a commercial illustrator.
Yes; you did make that claim, twice now.
A distinction without any real difference, given the hopelessly defeatist position you’ve taken.
*shrugz
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I never said anyone wasn’t a real artist. But the market for digital illustration is going. I didn’t cause that but it is reality. It is not a coincidence that one of these companies makes digital drawing tools for illustrators, they know what’s happening. If i was an illustrator i’d be putting away the drawing tablet and using analogue materials to stand out from the tsunami of AI art. Good clients will value this more going forward and will pay for it.
I’m sorry. I hope we can all find our place again, I really do. Same to you, dude. Keep the flame alive.
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I get it. I work better when other people are involved or when I have an audience or some one else in mind. FFS I actually like performing in front of people. Even just a hobby group or a couple friends to share with is better than nothing. It’s like making a big complicated multi-course dinner, sitting there looking at it for a few minutes alone, and then saying “guess I’ll clean up now.”
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I couldn’t see those details in the Image included but yeah those are pretty bad.
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