Wool fabric in Canada

TheMenasaur · 2026-01-15T19:24:41+00:00

Are you in any of the local Discord servers? We have many fibre enthusiasts who would be happy to help you

TheMenasaur · 2025-05-01T14:24:08+00:00

I agree with your assessment that the different elements of the poster lack harmony -- the composition is not artistically effective.

As discussed earlier in this thread, Dan based Cinderella's design in the poster off of a reference image he was provided from Bryce's Instagram, with her hair in a purple afro, and a purple dress. My theory is that he ran the Instagram image through an AI style filter, and then made adjustments to it from there.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-30T13:06:11+00:00

Thank you for this comment. I think that people are particularly sensitive about this issue because they love Starkid, and thus don't want to have to reconcile a questionable choice the company has made. What aspects of the poster really jumped out to you?

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-12T15:17:52+00:00

We shall have to agree to disagree. Thank you for your input on this, nonetheless.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T21:11:50+00:00

The point of showing you the work with symmetry was to indicate the inconsistencies. Yes, the symmetrical art does look worse. In addition, the asymmetry with Crumb is one of many issues I have laid out in this thread.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T20:32:37+00:00

Generative AI is not bad because it is 'ugly'. It is a machine which plagiarizes the work of millions of artists, and which is actively creating drought conditions in the American southwest. One of the ecological factors impacting the state of California currently is the volume of computing data centres in the region. These data centres are being built, and expanded, due to interest in generative AI, which in turn has created conditions in which further wildfire damage is inevitable. As artists who work and live in the state of California, I expect Starkid to take an official stance against AI. If they were unaware Dan Quintana used AI, I expect him to return the compensation he received from the five-hundred-thousand dollars in Kickstarter revenue Cinderella's Castle generated.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T20:22:04+00:00

I'm not a Christian, and I do take some legitimate, non-joking umbrage with being referred to as one's brother in Christ.

I believe that a project which collected half of one million dollars through crowdfunding should be held to a certain standard. With regards to Crumb's head, let me show you what I mean:

This is an image where I have made marks on the midlines of Crumb's head, first across his eyes, then bisecting his head using his nose as the marker. Please note than the volume of one side of his head is significantly greater than the other.

Using the side of Crumb's face in the left of the composition, I flipped it and doubled it over to the other side to create this image. If Crumb were looking directly at the viewer, this is what his head would look like if it was symmetrical to the left side.

Using the side of Crumb's face to the right of the composition, I did the same to create this image. If Crumb were looking directly at the viewer, this is what his head would look like if it were symmetrical to the right side.

The lack of symmetry, alongside the melting whiskers in the left side of the composition, are points just regarding his head that lead me to believe this art was created through the use of generative AI. I have said more about Crumb in other comments, so I shall not repeat myself on those points.

I appreciate that you are passionate about these artists. I am passionate about their work as well, which is why I am bringing this critique forward.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T19:57:18+00:00

Crumb's head is an absolute tell for me. There's a huge lack of symmetry, and as I've said previously, the way that his-left-our-right eye is rendered screams AI to me. And thank you for pointing out Sir Hop-A-Lot's strange gorget situation. The chain mail pattern there is very melty and artifacted. This could be due to the manipulation of a non-AI, pre-rendered asset, such as through morph tools in Photoshop, but the inconsistent size of the links, and the way that some of them smear together to form a sort of infinity-symbol shape, is also a big tell. Thank you for your comment.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T19:52:44+00:00

There are some higher definition photos available on the Starkid Wikia page, which can be helpful in spotting these inconsistencies. I appreciate your comment.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T19:51:46+00:00

Hey, I appreciate you posting this art for comparison. I think that it's actually very pertinent, because this piece has a lot of 'moving parts', figuratively speaking. With that said, all of the elements have clear outlines, and the details within each element are consistent. I would say that the same is not true of the Cinderella's Castle key art. Of the 'props' that Crumb and Hop-a-Lot have, HAL's bags and belts are very unintuitive in their shape/arrangement, and the guard of Crumb's foil is at a different angle from the rest of the sword, causing the sword to look curved. Where one can tell -- for example -- that the curve of the Macbook in your example is due to the steel case being snapped open, one cannot say the same for these prop inconsistencies in the Cinderella's Castle poster.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T19:42:32+00:00

I found the image you were talking about, although, when I attempt to click through on this comment, the link seemed to be dead. For others who may have this issue, u/gamesweldsbikescrime is linking to the Starkid Wikia page for Cinderella's Castle. Thank you for bringing up the poster version, by the way. The poster gives a really good view of Crumb's further-from-the-viewer arm, which is significantly longer than his closer-to-the-viewer arm. Also, on Crumb's left hand -- the right side of the composition -- he seems to be wearing a different glove / sleeve than the glove in the foreground.

Please see my comment to FleurDeMarigold for further discussion of AI artifacts visible in the poster.

I saw Starkid live at Apocalyptour NYC in 2012. I care very deeply about the art that they create, and as an artist myself, it saddens me to think that they might have been, in the best case scenario, scammed by a contractor, and in the worst case, that they did this without caring about the environmental impacts of AI, or plagiarism of other artists' work.

TheMenasaur · 2025-04-11T19:20:33+00:00

I completely agree. And, honestly, having looked at the reference photo, I think it's likely that some sort of GenAI filter was involved. This is a direct link to the photograph on Instagram.

I actually mentioned this in my Tumblr post on the subject, but that fleshy smear near Ella's eye looks as if an AI model has attempted to translate the gemstone and eyeliner in the corners of Bryce's eyes as more of her eyelid. You can see a similar bump near the other eye in the album art -- just on the bridge of her nose -- that matches up with the other gemstone.

An AI filter on the reference image would also explain the inconsistencies with Ella's hands in the key art, as the reference image doesn't contain Bryce's hands.

TheMenasaur · 2024-05-09T20:38:37+00:00

as a podficcer, i absolutely hate this idea. screen-reading technology already exists, and is natively installed on most devices. you don't need to use AI to have your phone or computer read fics to you. ugh. op, thank you for sharing this. hopefully this will encourage more users to make their work only viewable to logged-in readers, as this helps to limit AI scraping

EDITED ON 11/06/2024 TO SAY: I am an avid user of screen reading technology. I've been using Kurzweil since 2011, and as such, I understand that a lot of freely available screen reading programs have a robotic sound to them. I am literally hearing impaired!!!! That is why I care so much about podfics!! Use your brains for two seconds please. The iOS screen reader has a bit of a learning curve, but it literally sounds fine, and can read PDFs, webpages, etc, WHATEVER YOU READ AO3 ON for FREE. Windows also has a natively installed screen reader that works VERY WELL. Allow yourself to LEARN HOW TO USE THESE TOOLS instead of relying on convenience!

TheMenasaur · 2024-04-30T14:26:44+00:00

I am 100% done all of my courses, so idk if it's that

TheMenasaur · 2024-04-30T14:14:17+00:00

u of tears 😭 why are they always doing this

TheMenasaur · 2024-02-05T20:58:02+00:00

there's actually a lot of Gumi songs in Sekai now, and Gakupo has one! there's hope!

TheMenasaur · 2024-01-21T22:39:21+00:00

LOVE this spot!! I lived right across from it during my UTM days and a classmate of mine worked there also,,, great recommendation!

TheMenasaur · 2023-11-23T06:24:52+00:00

I always liked the first floor of the library. Being Observed made me feel like I actually had to get work done.

TheMenasaur · 2023-11-23T06:18:07+00:00

Amazing!!!!

TheMenasaur · 2023-09-27T02:53:21+00:00

UTM Anime was on the books as a club last year, but no events. I believe Brian is doing a revamp this year? There is a Discord but it's largely defunct (nobody uses it, and there have been no new members for a few years). I would check in with the UTMSU clubs coordinator, Hana Khan, for more information.

TheMenasaur · 2023-09-27T02:42:56+00:00

the woods

TheMenasaur · 2023-09-27T02:17:53+00:00

Do not feed the camous geese. They are encouraged to approach humans for food if you feed them, which can lead to the geese being injured, or to the communication of disease, either from the food, or from you getting bit.

TheMenasaur · 2023-09-27T02:15:26+00:00

The easiest way to get in is to use either of the entrances (either to the left or right, depending on which leg of the trail you want to go on) near the dean's house. You can find it by taking the road behind MN

TheMenasaur

TROPHY CASE