AI has risen through the ranks over the last years and while there are many contradictions around AI art and the ethical dilemma behind it… We artists need to come to terms with the fact that it’s going to stay around in one way or another. So, instead of avoiding it we should embrace it and utilize its power to our advantage.Let me show you how to speed up your process as a concept artist using AI.
Working With AI As An Artist
First and foremost I want to make on thing very clear… I don’t support the fact that a lot of AI software is trained based on artists’ works without their knowledge or consent. This is no more than art theft in my opinion. Especially since people are allowed to sell prints of that stolen intellectual property and make money off of it. Sadly it will still take a while for governments to implement rules & laws around the fair use of AI but that is a whole other topic.
But if AI art is such a tricky topic, why use it in the first place? Because there are ways to safely use AI for you and the other artists involved with it.
Don’t Claim AI Work As Your Own
This should be a rather obvious thing to do but do NOT claim AI as your own. I am not saying that AI art is a myth because it is not. It’s just that people abuse it and that the creators of a lot of them harmed artists with it. Which leaves a very sour after taste.
People can create wonderful images with the help of AI and some even have made a career out of it like Refik Anadol BUT there is a difference. He made AI art his own and didn’t just copy the style of one artist and make dozens of images of the same face only to sell it.
Until we know for sure how we can use and monetize AI art we should be careful how we deal with it or else it might get us into huge trouble later. Right now this whole thing is a grey zone where nobody knows in which direction we’re going to head. So better be safe than sorry.
Use It As Inspiration For Your Work
Every artist knows and dreads the famous art block where you simply don’t know what to draw… Or maybe you have that one idea but don’t know where to start and how you want it to look like. This is where AI can become very handy. It can give you images in mere seconds and you don’t have to only browse through Pinterest for hours to find that spark.
Maybe you want to paint a dreamy forest but don’t know what style you want to paint it in? Just throw the images into an AI generator and it will give you a few ideas on how to go about it. Once you made up your mind, you are good to go!
Quick Drafts To Get Your Idea Across
When dealing with clients it can sometimes be tough to get onto the same page while finding ideas. With AI you can generate images in seconds and show them to your customer so they know in what kind of direction you’re heading. You have to make it very clear to the client that it’s just a quick mock-up of your idea and NOT the final result.
It is advisable to use it along with a mood board & reference board during the pitch and better yet, make some sketches yourself as well. Using AI can save you so much time and research and it just makes your life easier. Some clients might even come to you with their own AI drafts so you have a better understanding of what they want.
Use It To Generate New Ideas
As a concept artist, we sometimes have to draw the same thing over and over again until our clients are satisfied. Though at one point, we might run out of ideas and then we look for more references and inspirations online.
AI can help us to get out of that slump and even give us fresh ideas we would’ve never come up with on our own. It gives you a new perspective on the whole thing and can sometimes give you the push you need to move on.
You Can Create Your Own Reference
With this one you need to be careful. AI is still learning and far from perfect. I mean look at all those hand memes when it comes to AI art. But it can give you an idea of how something could look, especially if you can’t find a suitable reference. The better you’ll become as an artist the better you are going to be able to tell if something looks right or wrong.
Even when using 3D as a reference, it is always good to get some real-life photos of it as well. Human sculpted models for example are often not quite correct or maybe the rig is bugging out and bending stuff in a weird way that isn’t natural. This is why you should pull from different sources to really nail down your piece.
AI Can’t Replace Designers Completely
Now that we know how to speed up our process as a concept artist using AI, we also need to talk about the pitfalls that can come with it. AI is not perfect. After all, it has been trained by humans.
AI Only Follows Rules
AI is a program that has been configured and trained to follow certain rules. This is not a bad thing since the design does the same. But as an artist, we love to break those rules. To explore. To see what works and what doesn’t. We have that certain gut feeling that we know when something looks good or bad. As well as personal taste.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t understand when it’s good to break a rule and when it’s not. This is one of the big advantages we have as human beings. We have intuition which the machine doesn’t have.
AI Isn’t Original
AI unlike man-made art isn’t original. It can’t be original to be more exact. Not without the help of humans. It is trained by already existing artwork and also trains itself with its own images. It can’t come up with its own unique styles and artwork nor express itself in the way we humans do. Innovation and originality comes solely from us humans when we create something that hasn’t existed before.
AI Looks More Or Less The Same
I am sure you have already noticed tons of AI images that look more or less the same on Pinterest or Google Search whenever you try to find something. That has many reasons. For one a lot of people recreate popular images to gain the most likes out of them which quickly makes them look generic. On the other hand since AI is trained on the same images, even feeding on it from its own creations. So over time things are just going to look more and more similar.
Another reason is that people simply take the pre-existing art style AI generators provide you with and role with that. So if there is an already given anime art style to choose from of course all the characters you create from it will more or less look very similar.
AI Images Aren’t Perfect
Even if AI is going to replace us one day it still needs a pair of eyes that have to look over it. There are going to be artifacts, anatomical mistakes, perspective issues, wrong output and so much more. It definitely needs some sort of polishing and quality assurance one way or another. Besides, just because you can type in what you want, doesn’t mean the AI is going to hand over exactly what you pictured. It needs tedious tweaking and multiple iterations to make the AI understand what you want and even after hours you may not get it right and have to do a paintover.
So as you can see, AI is a very versatile tool. It can help us speed up our workflow and make our lives easier but it can and will not replace artists. The program still needs us. When digital art first became a thing, people also doubted it at the beginning. It wasn’t accepted as art and people who used it as a medium have been frowned upon by traditional artists. The same with 3D and now… With AI. So learning how to work with it and how to take advantage of that technology isn’t only going to benefit you as an artist but it will also make you a way more valuable source for the company you want to work at.
Since you’re interested in implementing AI into your workflow, maybe you are also interested in other tools that can help you speed up your tasks and create a game of your own:
Game Development Essentials: Tools & Skills You Need To Start Creating Your Own Game
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