Well...it's been a minute, huh?
Sorry for the long hiatus but I really needed a break as my personal, professional, and yes, creative endeavors required my full attention. Don't worry, everything is good.
This blog is, after all, something I primarily do for fun and because [without it] my constantly bubbling ideas would eventually overflow and drive me quite mad if I didn't write them out somewhere. While very important to me, it doesn't 'pay the bills' if you know what I mean, and Real LifeTM must come first.
Although...more on that below.
Yesterday was Ghostbusters Day! and while I was unable to attend in person this year, I did keep up on the announcements and news coming out at the event, with the most interesting thing [to me] by far being Ghostbusters: Night Shift - a Netflix Animated Series coming out in 2027. Check out the logo!
Personally, I really like it. Classic but with a twist!
While we don't have a lot of solid information about it yet, we do know that the showrunners are Ben Hibon and Elliott Kalan. They were joined by Ghost Corps executive producers Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan to announce the series at yesterday's event.
Furthermore, its been revealed that the show is being done by Flying Bark Productions, the studio that gave us Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Stranger Things: Tales from '85.
This news makes me feel it's as good a time as any to announce a new project I'm working on; I will be producing an RPG System Agnostic collection of paranormal perps for use with your favorite games related to capturing, containing, and creatively counteracting pesky poltergeists titled, 'Hosts of Freaky Ghosts'!
Based on my various past posts about spooky scallywags from my previous paranormal policing campaigns, this is largely going to be a PDF of enemies - and possibly an ally or two - for West End's Ghostbusters RPG, Memento Mori's InSpectres, Ewen Cluney's Spooktacular, and with a little work, any such similar game using a like-minded premise and your rules of choice. I will be putting in up on DriveThruRPG hopefully in time for Halloween of this year.
A note about the art - potentially:
I've developed a technique in which I draw the ghosts by hand, upload them into one of several AI Art Generators, get a 'new' image, then spend an hour or more modifying the result to my liking using Photostudio, occasionally redrawing it quite a bit. In a way these are certainly AI slop images but they are AI slop image sourced from my own original illustrations.
Is it OK to use these in my product that's going to be for sale? What does everyone think? I really like how it comes out in the end and it saves me time as I'm never happy with my own art as is. I can spend hours and hours on the smallest drawing, drawing and redrawing it because it isn't 'perfect'. Often, I'm still not pleased with it in the finished art. Curse my talented by neurodiverse brain chemistry!
Using the method I have described, I get images I really like, though the ethics of it are very gray in my mind.
Let me know what you think in the comments and please be civil and constructive. I don't won't to produce something people aren't going to like on the grounds that I've used AI at all. I respect that view. I am only considering it because its my own art the programs are trained on.
I appreciate your time and thoughtful input.
Later days,
AD
Barking Alien
Happy Ghostbusters' Day! Exciting news about the new cartoon, right? Glad to hear you've been keeping busy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when it comes to your specific conundrum re: art, I think you need input from actual artists. I fear for most AI is a binary argument, although my understanding of your predicament appears more nuanced. It would be good to hear from people with a better understanding of the technology than I, who have read (and understood) what you are talking about doing.