I am working on a few projects at the same time right now but I found this little gem in an upcoming page of "Junior Champs". It is going to be a little while before we get to this scene but I thought you may like it as a bonus post today. It was just TOO beautiful not to share!
I have pages two, three, four, and FIVE of "The Bet" loaded up and I really love the story so far and am really excited to draw them out for you. Its absolutely killing me not to share it!
So here's a little story...
I always loved computers since I was young. So when I saw an iMac in the recycling centre, I decided to take it home and see if I can get it working. I managed to fix it and sold it for $140. When I saw two more, I brought those home and did the same.
Over the past year and 20 iMacs later, I had $3500 and enough to order a high specification MacBook Pro. (you can imagine how happy I was when Apple increased the price of this computer by $800 two days after I ordered it!) As you can imagine, the AI cloud services will NEVER work on anything I upload to them even for simple grammar and spell checking so I need a lot of RAM do any AI tasks locally.
So let me set things straight...
I DO NOT like how AI steals people's art. I DO NOT like how people are being trained to enjoy art created by a soulless robot. You guys have taught me something over the years. Art is drenched with the artist's expression, emotions and feelings. You guys have made it very clear when I'm drawing something I'm not excited about, you guys notice. When I am excited about a story and drawing, you guys get excited as well. That is such a wonderful feeling for someone who draws for others to share in my experience.
I have always dreamed of hiring a team to do the inks, shades, colours and editing like JAB does allowing him to come up with concepts and pencils, and passing it to his team to do the tedious finishing. Despite all of the wonderful financial support I get from all of you that is not a reality for me. Even the most junior artist will charge $80/page to do colours and $60 to ink. Each page would cost me from $150-$250. A full comic would cost me $3000-$5000 to produce. The purpose of experimenting with AI for my art is to explicitly hire the robot. It is similar to (if not a direct parallel) to hiring a team of people to help me.
So what do I want to do?
I can EASILY pencil an illustration in about an hour. I can easily write and pencil one comic book page each day. I can easily story board an entire 5 minute animation over a week. So, I imagine a time when we can produce a FULL 22 page comic issue each month, a sexy illustration each day and a 5 minute cartoon each month. I'm getting old. I don't look it but I definitely feel it. Time is definitely against me and I want to try to tell ALL of my stories as well as YOURS.
Hanna Solo, Lily, Doves, Shallow and all of the rest of the monster projects that I have put on hold due to lack of time. I have received dozens of stories and ideas from YOU and I would love them ALL but sadly, I cannot commit half a year to help you bring them to life.
I know I'm usually too ambitious in my plans and they usually fall flat but, I am a dreamer and I never let failure, disappointment, criticism and mockery prevent me from attempting to do something that could have been amazing.
That's how accomplishment works for me. 85% failure and 15% genius! Without the 85% failure we would never get the brilliant amazing stories I've done that we both love.
Thank you for all of your encouragement to try and milk that 15% out of me!
We'll see how this goes. Wish me luck!
(sorry, I didn't mean to make this such a long post).