Pondering About The Future

Okay, this one’s kind of a double for ya, a twofer - I’m gonna spout ‘bout AI art and the ending of my current contract cycle.

So I won’t get into it too much (SOME of y’all don’t need to know shit about me D:< ), but this year I landed a job that was pretty damn perfect for me.  The only thing is that it operates in a certain amount of months, then two months off.

It’s weird as hell, and for once in a long time I haven’t been able to be very…well, present.   In the moment.

Perhaps it’s training, perhaps it’s how I was raised, but I’m hyperaware of my current surroundings in space and time (in b4 how fucking pretentious that sounds), and perhaps it’s all the time I’ve spent in some Bikram Yoga, but yeah - I’m very right here, right now.  In the very least, it helps with some of the art I’m involved with, and that’s mostly very useful to me.

On the other hand, the past three weeks have been havoc with that, and with only a week or so more to go, I’m…wow, I’m glad my lead is INCREDIBLY happy with my performance, ‘cuz goddamn I’m barely there in the head.

I have SO MANY plans for those two months, including doubling down on finding a goddamn drummer for Anubis Unit, possibly getting a costume or two done, and also improving my prompt engineering to develop better, more consistent AI art.

Even more importantly, though, is to dust off my goddamn fingers and get back to hardcore work on Hell Yeah and The Generalist - Taboo 6: Of Whispers and Worship.

I’m LITERALLY halfway done with both, but ugh - life.

I’ve also been doing what I can in regards to marketing and improving my audience, as well as rebuilding my beta reader group (WHICH I COULD REALLY USE A FEW MORE OVER ON TWITTER IF Y’ALL WANT IN, HMU BB), but that’s for the next blog post.

Suffice it to say, I’m kinda quiet about the whole rising of AI art tools and such, at least on social media.

…strike that, I’ve made a couple of posts, but y’all have NO IDEA how loud I am about stuff, and a couple of antagonizing posts are nothing compared to me really poppin’ off on something.

Suffice it to say (round two), I’m seeing a metric crapton of complaints about AI art and if you scratch the surface even a little bit?

Yeah, they’ve got “fanmade” stuff that they’re literally selling merch about.

Okay, here we go with that hot pepperoni take: there is nothing wrong with AI art so long as it’s derivative.

Like song covers on albums or being used commercially, OR LITERALLY USING OTHER PEOPLE’S/COMPANY’S IP FOR YOUR FUCKING MERCH OR TO INCREASE YOUR OWN AUDIENCE, so long as the AI art is unique and derivative it should be fine.

Hell, the law already stated this, for all that individual places (Newgrounds, FurAffinity I guess, etcetera and et al) has stated that it either doesn’t count or it isn’t going to get love from the algorithm, which…that’s kinda ironic, ain’t it?

Computer created artwork won’t get love by computer-run algorithms. :3

Anyway, >I< have been having a blast learning more about prompt engineering and AI artwork, and made my debut on Twitter using (mostly) Night Cafe Studio.

As good as NCS is, and even more so as improved as they’ve been lately, I’m going to make my swap to Stable Diffusion, Waifu Diffusion (BIG TIDDY BAROQUE OLD WORLD NEO-VICTORIAN CATGIRLS TIME!!!!) and, more importantly, Midjourney before I focus on two more projects: pop out my own comics/graphic novel and finally, FINALLY getting what I need to kill off the Gonzo Gaming Sourcebook project.

It just needs artwork and a bit more writing, yo, just in time (ish) for my two year schedule for it too.

Ultimately I’ve got more stuff moving forward, still doing stuff for Glitches 2, and I have SO MUCH MORE being edited even as we speak.  I’m also considering finally returning to Youtube now that I’ve got an actual gaming rig that can handle crunching video and audio good….and the new (used) Shure Microphone 55s is the fucking TITS, comrades!

TITS I tell you!!!!

Being (half) a human being, though, I gotta admit that I can’t do it without the support and following of the Army.  Just reading one of my stuff once and telling me how good it is ain’t the same thing as reading the next work, leaving a review, or even just helping me out with networking and contacts.

I suck at marketing, no matter how hard I go at it, and I need help.  SO, help me fight the artistic depression and keep me goin’ on The Work, yeah?

Find me on social media.  Buy the stuff on Amazon, review it, read it, and hit me up if you wanna get invooooolved!

I promise you freebies, kickbacks, pretentious-assed titles in Duder’s Army and more.

But for now?

Time to get to complaining in the next blog post.

YOU: “But Thomas Duder, Author of the Things, how can I find y-”

ME (interrupting you): JUST FUCKING GOOGLE ME, I’M LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. IF I HAVE TO TELL A MODERN DAY GODDAMN PERSON HOW TO FUCKING USE GOOGLE I’M GOING TO GO FUCKING GOBLIN MODE, JUST FUCKING FIND OUT AND FUCK AROUND.

Seriously though, I’ve got a contact area here, I’ve got a carrd.co, I’m findable.

If you can’t find me, you ain’t lookin’, and that’s part of the problem. Speaking about complaining (ending segue version 2 lol)…