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6.6 million views, generated with runwayml. I’m not on Twitter, so I can’t read the comments, but 6.6 million views doesn’t sound like people are rejecting it.
Han Solo visits the Enterprise-D
Star Wars vs. Star Trek: The ULTIMATE Crossover Battle!
Mostly positive comments. Some negativity about the quirks of A.I., but go back and look at any other form of animation in its early days. Or film making in general. Most of the effects produced up into the 90’s don’t hold up anymore. Even if it’s big budget stuff, you can see black borders around the miniatures, and the movement is limited. You can tell there’s a man in the monster suit. It’s a shame to see comments knocking the limitations of a technology in its early days, instead of appreciating what a leap forward it is.
Anyway, there’s been a significant uptick in traffic lately. It may be kids getting out of school, or more bot farms coming online, or it may be that the blogging content helps. Expect more blogging content, because that might not be it but it could be it. The comic will continue to update on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the feed here is probably going to fill up with blog posts as I try new things.
State of the Comic #15
I did my test to see if A.I. could ink pencil sketches. The answer is, “Depends on the model.” Flux Kontact failed, so I tried Google Nano Banana, and that worked brilliantly. I moved on to coloring, and found out it helps to generate flats and take the flats and line art into GIMP for correction. Then the finished result can be fed back into the A.I. and it will have a much easier time producing the final colored image. Although A.I. companies push the idea of doing everything by prompting with text, it really isn’t the best way to work with A.I. Text has its place, and so do other things. A.I. only shifts the amount each tool gets used. 3D is much less important, 2D shifts to the forefront as the most important skill. The great thing is that I’ve now got a workflow where pencil drawings are my star player, which gives me original art to sell again. This is one of the better developments in my career as an artist, since computerization eliminated most of the originals I might have made throughout my career. There’s almost nothing for either Way of the Waifu or XTIN, or anything else. Just very loose sketches few could even decipher.
I get to retain the status of being a “real artist,” while offloading the parts I never liked, but had to do, to A.I. I never wanted to be an inker, either traditionally or digitally. And the idea of my original pencil drawing being destroyed by a traditional inker, which nearly every professional comic book page ever drawn was, is apalling. Good riddance to inking, in all its forms. Except A.I. inking, which is the best thing ever. Except for possibly A.I. coloring.
A double pox on coloring and painting. I did so much less of what I wanted to do because of it. For those who can spend endless hours making paintings of fruits because the colors are interesting, may that always be there for you. I could never.
I made a few short video clips, those didn’t turn out as well. But the attempts burned up nearly half of the credits I had saved up.
So here’s the art I made tonight (except for the pencil sketch, from 2005). Videos were made with Grok Imagine, Happy Horse, and Seedance. I tried a bunch of other models, the results aren’t worth showing.
State of the Comic #14
Bandwidth usage has quadrupled since posting the music tracks. That’s not saying a lot, and it may not be saying anything if it is bots scraping content. No one’s signed up to comment yet, but even that could be bots, couldn’t it? It’s a shame thinking positively and thinking realistically are so often enemies.
I’ve been meaning to test whether I could use AI to ink my pencil drawings and color them. I’m sure it can. I need to go ahead and get that test done. That could be a decent compromise. I never liked digital drawing. It would be nice if I could go back to doing real pencil drawings again. I don’t want to give up comic making (although I have for years now), but I’ve got to bring the work load down, since its not likely to ever be more than a hobby.
With that in mind, here’s a non-AI generated graphic that represents my musical act –
Hopefully that image won’t overlap my text like the thumbnail for “R Kelly in P Major” did. That was working fine, and then I come back the next day and it’s not working fine. I’ve got no idea why.
Well anyway, “OM-MINUS” is the male energy that balances “Way of the Waifu,” because “Way of the Waifu” is a bit suspect and weird on its own. I’m having second thoughts about using the comic name as a band name, but then there’s no shortage of real bands with stupid names and stupid acts that made it big. If you haven’t seen Angine de Poitrine yet, there’s the current example. Some say they are technically excellent, but I can’t say I enjoy their music. They obviously gained attention for the uniquely weird visual.
Hopefully that image won’t overlap my text like the thumbnail for “R Kelly in P Major” did. That was working fine, and then I come back the next day and it’s not working fine. I’ve got no idea why.
Well anyway, “OM-MINUS” is the male energy that balances “Way of the Waifu,” because “Way of the Waifu” is a bit suspect and weird on its own. I’m having second thoughts about using the comic name as a band name, but then there’s no shortage of real bands with stupid names and stupid acts that made it big. If you haven’t seen Angine de Poitrine yet, there’s the current example. Some say they are technically excellent, but I can’t say I enjoy their music. They obviously gained attention for the uniquely weird visual.
State of the Comic #13
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Hey, it’s the actual creator of the comic this time!
I’ve added a registration button to the menu bar. Usually far more bots sign up than real people, so I’ve been hesitant to do comments, but this might help me find out what’s going on out there. It looks like a few of you listened to Dreilide Guitar Intro 10. I posted it to YouTube at the same time as here, and it’s only gotten one view; which speaks volumes to the value of the YouTube channel. I’m definitely surprised to see that my little website, which hasn’t been advertised anywhere in a year and probably doesn’t have any links going to it, is good for more views than YouTube.
I’d appreciate some fan support if you’ve got it! I don’t know how many of you are real, but I had three book sales last week, so a few of you must be! Everyone keeps buying XTIN though. If you want the waifus to go away, now’s your chance to tell me about it!
I expect this place will start to turn into a blog, which will make the comic harder to read, but if anyone cares about that, it’s available on Gumroad. I’ve got to come up with something I can do when college picks up again, and who knows what life will be like a year from now. I thought I picked a safe STEM degree, but it’s looking like I might as well have done the “lesbian dance therapy,” for all my STEM degree appears to be worth. At least I’d get to see lesbians.
Let’s see if anyone likes guest rappers. Here’s the version of “R Kelly in P Major” that was supposed to go out, but I couldn’t get the vocals worked out in Udio, so I made a version with only the female vocalist. I got the rap version working in Sonauto though. Here it is –
This seems to be a cursed track so far, I wonder how people are reacting to it? I would have thought the name alone would be good for views. Well, feel free to kick your 2 cents in. I’m at a loss to explain how AI acts are making it now, but mine isn’t doing anything, although it seems like I have enough of a start here to see some movement.
(BTW, that is supposed to be Stuka singing. I think her character has evolved some since her arc in the comic. Now she is more soft-spoken. Her voice didn’t come out right at the end of the “Bar Fight” video, but I didn’t have any control over that. Well, if I had the time to beat my head against the wall long enough, I suppose I could have fixed it. I’m sure it will be easier to do this stuff in the future.)
This seems to be a cursed track so far, I wonder how people are reacting to it? I would have thought the name alone would be good for views. Well, feel free to kick your 2 cents in. I’m at a loss to explain how AI acts are making it now, but mine isn’t doing anything, although it seems like I have enough of a start here to see some movement.
(BTW, that is supposed to be Stuka singing. I think her character has evolved some since her arc in the comic. Now she is more soft-spoken. Her voice didn’t come out right at the end of the “Bar Fight” video, but I didn’t have any control over that. Well, if I had the time to beat my head against the wall long enough, I suppose I could have fixed it. I’m sure it will be easier to do this stuff in the future.)State of the Comic #12
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Let’s see what this does –
Video Upload Test
State of the Comic #11
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