So ... where have I been for so long? Short version: 2022 "did a number" on me, and although I've started to make the journey back to health and strength, there's a (very) long way to go yet. For the longest time, I wasn't able to do anything much of anything. Then, on top of everything else I got Covid, and took months to throw it off -- the truth is, it's six months later, and I still haven't recovered a hundred percent...
In that time, art and writing have been next to impossible. I think I've written four short stories in the last year; and four items have been published, or are about to be (I just posted to my writing blog, bringing that up to date with scribbling and publishing) ... but writing new stuff? Painting? Rendering? That's been too much to even contemplate, till these last few weeks. Then...
Couple of things: I've gotten my feet wet with Krita. Full-on painting. Soooo much to learn, before I start doing exotic young hunks, (nudge wink) so I might as well learn on cats and owls and flutterflies, right? Krita is a LOT of fun. If you have any interest, it's open source, free forever, and looks (to me) to be just about the equal of things like Corel Paint, perhaps not quite on the same level with Rebelle ... but these progs are prohibitively expensive, while Krita is ... well, it's free. It's Krita.org, as far as I know, not dot-com.
The great news is, the Huion tablet is on and working, and is fan-flipping-tastic. It's making it possible for me to actually sketch and doodle. The squirrel pen and ink image was my first ever foray into the program, and it really is pen and ink. The owl was my first full-on true painting. I need to buy some extra brushes -- acrylic brushes, oil brushes, watercolour brushes, textures. Very soon, we'll be off to the races.
And just as I discover this, along comes the wonderful world of AI. Well, now. The truth is, since don't have much of a cash flow, DAZ is a bit too expensive for me. All I can do is work with the existing props and sets and costumes, and one has to say, there's only so many ways you can rearrange them before you start to recognise literally every element of every picture. But with AI, it's free, incredibly fast, and amazingly vivid.
The Chris Foss style heavy industrial spaceship image took minutes. Seriously. Argh. Urgh. You want stuff like this? Seconds, and there is is...
I do believe I have just heard the death knell for many, many forms of art. Unless DAZ can make its product more affordable AND easier to render on systems which real people (not industry pros, or companies chucking around tonnes of money) can afford, more and more people will drift away to AI. In fact, I'm heading in that direction, as well as long, slow, laborious painting in Krita. But I do want to be painting those exotic young hunks, and you do have to start somewhere, so ... here we go. Starting.
