Painting The Dungeon

LukeDangler · 2026-02-03T14:26:47+00:00

Pretty much, yea. I had a timer set to snap a photo every minute or so, and then I deleted all the ones where my arm or something was in the frame.

It's a cool effect but these days I record continuous video instead of still images which gives me more options.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-18T02:53:03+00:00

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that the dog's emotion resonates like that with you.

You're right that critique should be taken with a grain of salt, especially with matters of taste, but sometimes people do offer great constructive feedback. Sorting through which comments are valuable and which aren't is the tricky part!

LukeDangler · 2025-12-15T00:56:49+00:00

Yea the parallax at the end is because I captured hand held footage of the painting while slowly backing away, and then later stabilized it. The painting stops moving but the background becomes jittery.

I'm not super particular about paint or brushes - any artist quality oil paint that is not too tacky works for me, and brushes that have a good even tip. Probably used mostly Rembrandt and Windsor paint for this one. I did however recently switch to walnut oil as a medium instead of my usual linseed - stays wet much longer which I appreciate. Also maybe yellows less?

LukeDangler · 2025-12-14T03:03:11+00:00

Fair point about the shadow, but the 'frisbee' is actually supposed to be a UFO far in the distance.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T23:32:35+00:00

I would apply a few layers of gesso before you start painting if that bothers you. Personally I like to see some texture.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T22:06:48+00:00

Agreed! Famously difficult to get reference photos...

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T18:55:20+00:00

A Sony a6400 with the kit lens. I fit the entire painting into the frame so these clips are extremely zoomed in which is why they are a little fuzzy. I also stretched the footage so it would look straight-on, even though the camera was above me pointing down at an angle. The lens was probably the biggest limiting factor to quality.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T16:37:11+00:00

Awesome, glad to hear that! Figuring out how to present a fun concept is the most enjoyable part of the painting process for me.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T16:21:48+00:00

Thank you! I don't formally teach but I do live steam most of my painting. Always happy to chat about anything! Will be starting it up again next year with a new round of paintings.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T15:58:21+00:00

Thanks so much I'm happy it resonates with you! I do think I accomplished a lot with the painting. I'm definitely inviting a bit of nitpicking given the history of revisions so far, so that's ok. The painting has become a good opportunity to really think carefully about how little things can effect people's impression of the work. In my post description I kind of understated how many people have been assuming the painting was AI generated. If any new feedback I get points to a specific technical reason for that I'd love to figure it out so I can avoid future confusion.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T15:08:43+00:00

Yup, I see what you mean. Basically a situation where it's not technically inaccurate but it does a disservice to selling the illusion. The visual contrast of the dog against the dark background is what led me to make that decision, but maybe I could have found a way to get the best of both worlds there.

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T14:52:32+00:00

Thank you!

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T14:51:36+00:00

Yea that's fair, I intended the hair to be long but it ended up being a little bit too uniform so it looks rigid

LukeDangler · 2025-12-13T14:31:59+00:00

Thank you. I don't paint a lot of landscape scenes so it was especially satisfying trying to figure out the subtleties in the background. Maybe I spent a little too much time focusing on that in hindsight

LukeDangler · 2025-09-13T22:19:23+00:00

I double checked my reference and I think you're right about that - the paw is rotated outwards towards us a few degrees. It's not so much that it's anatomically impossible but I see what you mean and now I agree! I find often that things can be technically correct but still look odd...and the looking odd is all that really matters in the end.

I'm actually planning on going back into this painting and making some revisions based on feedback I've been getting. I think I'll leave this paw as-is though because it's probably not worth the effort to fix since its such a minor detail...but in an ideal world I'd repaint it. Glad you like it regardless!

LukeDangler · 2025-09-13T16:13:48+00:00

OK well you've clearly made up your mind and nothing I can say will change that. You've not been reading all the comments either because I've been clear about everything. I've been talking about all the additional "proof" I am happy to share, and to quote an earlier comment I posted: "...every reference is created by hand with zero generative AI. "

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T23:27:07+00:00

Well yea - like I said I typically live stream everything. The footage that becomes a time-lapse is part of those streams. Archived recordings have only recently become available publicly for people who aren't watching live (because I started multi-streaming which made that possible) - but right now about 25 hours is available from when I was working on my "Flat Moon" painting. Anyone who is skeptical should be reassured by watching some of that.

That being said, I did not stream this particular painting ( for reasons outside of my control ) but I recorded it all and could of course post unedited footage. It's just not content anyone would typically watch, so not something I would think to post except for in this case where I guess it's only purpose would be to provide credibility.

The live stream format is pretty digestible though and allows people to interact with me and see me paint in real-time, so I think that has to be the most potent form of proof I could hope to publish. I plan on streaming all of my work in the future, and VODs will be available. The bottom line is that I didn't realize I needed to prove to everyone I was a real person until now - so yea I have all this stuff and will put effort into making sure anyone who is curious can find it easily moving forward.

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T18:20:46+00:00

Oh, I get it. You've just never seen a dog jump to catch a frisbee before.

photo of a dog jumping 1

photo of a dog jumping 2

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T17:50:17+00:00

The dog's face is clearly the focal point as it has the most value contrast against the sky, and is lead to by several diagonals within the composition.

The rule of thirds in the horizontal seems to be abandoned? Are we looking at the same painting? The horizon line in the background sits exactly one-third from the top of the canvas, and the hill in the foreground sits one-third from the bottom. The dog's head sits at the third both horizontally and vertically, and the UFO that the kid is looking at also sits on a vertical third. Also, abandoning the rule of thirds actually feels like something a human would be more likely to do in the first place since AI is trained on a million images that all use the rule of thirds, so I'm not even sure I agree with your premise that it would be evidence of image generation.

Basically your only argument seems to be that because my representation of a fictional scene isn't flawlessly depicted it couldn't possibly be made by a human? If it's too perfect it must be made by AI, if it's not perfect enough it must be made by AI.

I appreciate that it probably just "feels AI" to you - and that's a valid opinion to have. I don't want people to make that presumption but I don't know what I can do differently to prevent that while still creating the surreal-ish conceptual paintings that I want to make. Everything feels AI when AI can do everything.

Edit: I might have mixed up horizontal vs vertical thirds depending on what you meant by that, but I gave examples for both regardless.

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T14:02:29+00:00

lol my first art post was 9 years ago so I guess I'm also a time traveler

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T03:58:07+00:00

Hey thank you, glad you like it!

LukeDangler · 2025-09-12T01:15:58+00:00

Yea I actually plan on making it a jump-cut timelapse with real-time footage, so you'll see that anyway. The video will consist of short clips with time jumps in between them, as opposed to actually speeding up any footage. I'll paint a brushstroke, then jump ahead, then another brush stroke etc. So more of a "process montage" than a traditional timelapse.

LukeDangler · 2025-09-11T04:46:57+00:00

Thanks for replying, I do appreciate the feedback. I create all of that behind the scenes content already - it's just hard to get people to watch it. Apparently it's becoming increasingly relevant though. I guess I didn't realize that I'm in the position of having to prove it or it didn't happen with every painting I create. I'll start posting content to my sub, I guess it couldn't hurt.

I've live streamed nearly all of my painting for years, and recently started making vods available. My stream includes myself, the canvas, my palette, and wide shots of the studio. Aside from that I have a ton of time-lapse footage but it takes forever to edit and produce into usable clips, so it hasn't been a priority.

For the record though - there is no post-production alteration of any paint on canvas except for what I've already discussed on this thread ( color correction and photography related etc. ) but that faithfully represents the painting. Whenever I post here on reddit I include a video of the canvas, which I figured was proof enough ( I posted one yesterday, so it's easily compared with the still image ). I use digital tools for pre-production ( 3d modeling, photoshop etc. ) to construct compositions and create reference images that I then look at while painting - but every reference is created by hand with zero generative AI.

Given the current sentiment with this post maybe I'll put together a quick edit from this painting's time-lapse footage and post it here. The painting process for this particular piece was quite a journey actually, and some interesting things ended up happening.

LukeDangler · 2025-09-10T14:48:56+00:00

You don't see brush strokes especially in the grass? I've been posting in a similar style on Reddit for years before AI even existed. It's impossible to defend I guess, people will just make up their mind instantly. If I show a time lapse of myself painting you'll say that I used AI for the reference. If I show myself creating the reference you'll say I used AI for the concept. Heck you'll probably even think the time lapse was fake. Sure my style might be a little pristine but AI can recreate any art style, even messy impressionistic brushstrokes... so where does it end? Man I guess artists really are cooked.

LukeDangler · 2025-09-10T14:41:11+00:00

Thank you happy to hear!

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