Here's pasting from another reddit topic I made about what I consider AI Art and what I consider visualization of an idea.
"I'm a professional illustrator this is my take: AI Art becomes art when it's more than just prompting, until then you're just the "idea guy" and an idea isn't art"
Let's see how we got to this point
AI is art if you:
- Draw your own compositions, set your own lighting and tone
- Create your own characters then render them out with the AI
- Create your own environments, perhaps draw the outlines, decide the colors, lighting, draw your own lighting and colors like what InvokeAI allows and so on
- Do your own finetuning/inpainting and so forth
For this topic I'm going to use a very simple concept and won't fine tune or spend too much time on the final AI render, my goal it to show you the following:
- we have full control of AI
- It can produce characters it is not trained on if guided properly
- your characters are still your own if you drew them first and the AI is merely tasked to render them in different styles
- your composition, choice of colors and so forth is still your own artistic choice if you yourself chose those colors and drew them
let's draw a simple quick character sketch, we want this guy rendered in 3d but don't want to go through the tedious process of 3d modeling, UV mapping and rigging.
Since we're doing this for a quick AI demonstration let's create a simple scene
So we can start rendering this out
since at the moment I only have KLING's unlimited O1 image available because I'm out of Nano Banana, let's try and turn this into a render with that
Now this step is probably unnecessary, but much like I used to do in SDXL I decided to separate the outlines from the base colors first
Since this is KLING and not Nano Banana it's going to probably not do things exactly as pictured, but we never know. I gave it a prompt, I didn't like the treets I made so I told it to make them fluffy and with round clusters of leaves
We got a bunch of 3d renders
eventually I got settled on this
Now, there's no further need to use AI, it's now time for me to bring the illustration to life manually
Now this is barebones
Something is still missing, I could further add wetness/sheen to the umbrlla, the boy's raincoat and boots and so forth, but for now we'll stop here.
This, albeit very basic is art
it's AI Art because it was art assisted by AI
but it's not the same as a prompt
if I just prompted for this, it would have just been a visualized idea
EDIT: so this is just my process
but people in the comments mention that if you put enough time into an AI image, which I understand as inpainting, fine tuning, adding details, fixing the composition, lighting and so on. Does it become art then? Well, is photo editing art? "the art of photo editing and color grading?" if so then yes, but if you accept the first image the AI renders and call that "my art", that I can't quite accept. I feel you need to put effort, to fine tune it, to make it your own manually before it goes from visualized idea to proper art. Not just picking one from a bunch of renders and calling it "my AI art"
yes art can evolve and be accidental, I myself don't think or plan much when illustrating but it's different when "someone else" or "your tool" draws your idea for you, that's not your art just yet.
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Let me give you a rundown of my creative process and why I disagree that your vision = your art in all cases.
I have a very specific visualization process, I have exceptionally vivid imagination and all it takes is for me to read the book or story I'm illustrating or text and I instantly see it as a cartoon/movie, complete with animation, voices, shots, angles and fully realized characters.
I've been actively illustrating for over 16-17 years now maybe 18 as a profession but before that I've been drawing as a hobby since 1.5/2 years old.
I don't do sketches, I don't do characters in different poses, I do none of that. I see the "movie" in my head and draw the paused scenes of said movie, that's all.
I work exclusively as a freelancer for projects where I am given maximum freedom with minimal meddling from the clients, so far in all my years as an illustrator that has been highly respected by almost all my clients.
Now since I'm a bit on the spectrum, what amplifies my vision even further is me getting up and spinning, I can spin without getting dizzy forever. I keep my eyes open and the blur of the spinning is my "screen" this is where I not only see but also experience my ideas in their full glory.
At this point all that's left is for me to just draw what I've seen, that's it. I don't design purposely, I don't think about tiny details as that exhausts me, I just see it in my head and draw it.
But if I were to tell somebody else what I see and expect them to draw, that would be our art at best and their visualization of my idea at worst. It would be a form of my vision but not my vision exactly.
My non AI Art: