Saturday, May 25, 2024

# OldStuff Saturday?

 I still around... on my 30+ day run as a freight loader at a Walmart Distribution Center nearby my house. It's... been a battle against all the body parts and muscles I've never used fighting me. lol

I've also been slowly tinkering with the V-Tuber concept and wares a bit to try and figure out some streaming on twitch. Nothing major fancy right now due to not having the best options for making models and all. 

I basically am going with the little PNG Discord Fugi open and closed mouth option until I can get back on track financially with Bills and Past Dues to look into a more digital-friendly drawing tool system. I've found that PNGTubing Rigging requires layer cutout forms which my traditional art style complicates.  So keep an eye open for when i finish testing & tinkering and start trying to go live a few times.

I warn you all now that I am like an 90s kid so there will be playing games like SimCity4 and Millennial humor and brain-fog with some newer things I think were neat. So keep your eyes pealed. 


To touch on the image below - I posted this on my Instagram tonight after talking with Miss Jan about the idea of posting old artwork on IG and feeding the algorithm. A toe-dip into the idea of graphic design for a establishment in my OC's world. Made in 2015 using Photoshop CS6. Still dunno bout the hashtag options. Myself and Jan both like the idea i tossed at the wall of a hashtag for Sunday to post sketches of old or new art. Lemme know what y'all think!


I do hope to maybe try and work more on this blog as well and it's design. Another Blog I designed for a different project did allow me the ability to see some better options in Blog Design I wanna implement here sometime.


Ta'ta for now!!

©2015-2024 Celix Productions,Dave McCoy

 

Thursday, February 15, 2024

I swear I not Ded

I liiiiiiveee... kinda.
Been rough tho... not gunna lie.

I am hoping for the year to start having a more up-tick trend soon, but until then I want to at least refresh the blog a little for future hoped plans.

Added some new links to other ways you can support me if you want & new header imagery for the new year. 

Additionally, I've been trying to tweet more in the twitter-land to be more present. My character's with socials have been on and off. If you want good vibes, I'd suggest Pumpkin's twitter.  If you want more unfiltered angst, Head over to Jag's twitter. 

And to end it for now - i know there is some major discourse, hate, and polarizing views on AI generated imagery. I understand the reasoning & why artists are upset. 

At the same time, I do find this AnimeGenius Live 3D Text to Image generator a good way to keep myself visualizing. It's additionally entertaining the strange warps in reality it can create. 

I note this as I have been using a few of these creations in last few blog posts for imagery placeholders. I can flap my yap more bout that at a different time.

This post's image was testing for Pumpkin Kawaiichi looks. 

So, til next time - ^^v
 
Made using AnimeGenius Live 3D TTI
https://animegenius.live3d.io/text-to-image


 

Thursday, July 27, 2023

GoFundMe is Live - any support & sharing appreciated

Hello!!!  
Dang, two posts within the same month?! Who am I?

One might say this post will be a less fun topic, yet it is more of a step forward.

Some may or may not know this, but I am rather introverted, possibly to an extreme. I also tend to be rather stubborn & the cocktail of the two traits makes it difficult for me to openly ask for help from others.

That said. I have created a GoFundMe campaign which I have been quietly peddling for the last week. Again asking for help is already difficult & feels like I'm bothering people, let alone doing so to the world of the internet chock full of people I don't know.

https://gofund.me/41aec073


So, a little about the campaign and my goals.

The GoFundMe is meant as a way for me to try and explore all options I have to get my head above water financially. A long stint of poor decisions, life events, workplace tomfoolery, and the like has placed a financial future in question. Turning 42 last week obviously adds to the stress and realization I am not getting younger and currently have zero retirement funding or a proper career that could offer real security.

Driving a forklift or doing shipping & receiving tasks for $21-$25/hour won't allow me to find financial peace, move back to Arkansas, or offer a secure retirement. My own mismanaging of my life, up to now, has not helped the situation.

As noted on the campaign page, I am not expecting much from this. I understand the counter-intuitive thinking this brings to the table. I hope to be proven wrong and maybe even make a go of this. Yet I also know there are more viable uses of people's money, better charities, and campaigns to fund on the platform. I again must stress I am weighing all my options to try and rectify the wrongs I've made in the last 30+ years.

I am on the list to attend a Union building & construction trades orientation for Milwaukee's "Big Step" on August 10th. I hope to find myself a place in heavy equipment operation, or "Operating Engineer " as they call it, to find better wages, benefits, and a career that could help me find security. If that does not pan out - I will have to regroup and consider what I can do for either higher pay (which has not been easy to come by) or re-explore the idea of truck driving (which has a high risk of defaulting on my bills during the low-paying training period).

Overall, this campaign could help with getting a firm standing if successful. I'll try not to flood socials about it as best I can.

To keep it Artsy minded, here we have a Darket from my adventures of Live3D's AI Art generation. She is ready for bed, a place I should have been by now, giving you the moe eyes. You can check out the last blog post on my recent Artificial Intelligence artwork journey with the help of Live3D's website. 

©2023 Character, Dave McCoy
©2023 Imagery, Live3D AI Art Generator



Until next time! 

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

A.I., Tool -or- Digital Pyramid Scheme?

So - popping in after an uneventful birthday passing, as is the case annually & has become a norm.

That stated, I spend a week or two in a corner of the internet that has been criminalized and touted as evil by many on social media. Artificial Intelligence art generation/image generation has the face value of being comparable to Wal-Mart entering a wholely local store community.

My brief dipping of a toe into this puddle of A.I. came from my growing interest in Virtual Youtubers (VTubers). I have a pointed view on VTubing that I will save for a future post.

Needless to say. One of VTubing's tools, Live 3D, had an online Artificial Intelligence generator for both Anime Characters & "Waifu" creation that I felt I had to at least tinker with. After a week or two (on & off between work, sleep, & life) and an indeterminant amount of attempts to change prompts & settings of which I did not know the intended use, I reached my goal of what I wanted to create.

© 2023 Celix Productions, Dave McCoy - Characters & Imagery


Pictured above are my attempts to visualize with A.I. 3 sister characters known as "The Kawaiichi Sisters' " who all live together and are all humanized abilities Kawaiichis. The details of Kawaiichi's should also be a blog post. Admittedly, I should be using past tense wording, but I just haven't gotten that much of an opportunity to try and dance my fingers across the keyboard and flesh out information.

I'm bringing myself back to focus here. Where does A.I. sit with me as an artist (granted a less active one) who knows the claims of illegal and blatant use of uncredited data for creations? The morality of people profiting off imagery that they made prompts them to create? The track record of minimal effort art that may lack warmth and emotion from an actual person bleeding a part of themselves in every line and stroke?

In the end - I look at A.I. as a use for reference. There is, still, no better way to express yourself visually & emotionally while imprinting a part of yourself onto paper than with physical art.

Physical art, as defined by me, is use of your hand and arm to create an image, be it traditionally or digitally. I feel A.I. can find itself cooperative within this scope through reference. Myself & others are more internally minded. For me, I find it easier to understand things mentally & characters tend to surface from RPG chats in the past, random days at work around machinery, or the day-to-day I observe.

I may not be giving the best wording for it, but I cannot visually see in my mind the character, only feel what kind of "vibes" they give off or a placeholder, much like an NPC, but in my head. Others can visualize and see characters and stories in detail internally & those same people may not have as easy of time finding the "vibe" or attitude embodied by that entity.

There is nothing wrong with either way.

Again, art is a way to express yourself and release emotion. A.I. also brings to the table a way to use keywords you may already know for a character, some real-life traits, and general background info to generate a starter pack entity. It could also be a tool for those, again like myself, who struggle with pose setup or suffer the same "insert body space here" syndrome.

I'd suggest using A.I. just as I used it in the prior noted image - as a reference for the characters involved. Offering a template to visualize characters you may still be developing or haven't the foggiest idea what they look like other than an entity apart of your other character's lives/story.

I would say to avoid using this new medium to create full-finished artwork for the reasons I stated earlier. If you're using art as a fast-track scheme to riches or to be the latest talked-about creator, making your income on A.I., you're simply short-changing yourself from a form of peace. There are also moral and legal issues that, while hearsay, could discredit a creator using the medium.

Art, as a medium, bears such priceless advantages and journeys for anyone who steps into it. Be it traditional or digital drawing, photography, or writing. The arts, as a whole, should still be done by hand and facilitate inner peace and the release of negative emotions.

Let me know your thoughts on A.I.

Do you agree its use solely as a reference source may bring legitimacy to the otherwise hated media? Or have the bridges been burned on the topic for you?

I'll try to post more entries as best I can between those earlier-mentioned roadblocks. Should I try to get a Kawaiichi dossier post created next, or should I fawn over VTubers' in-text?

You can try Live3D's A.I. generator at: https://live3d.io/ai_anime_art_generator