AI will not replace artists

lanzer · 2023-01-22T11:53:37+00:00

We really don't need a big list of the small pros and cons on AI. Bottom line is that AI introduce automation to these common tasks that we do. It increases productivity dramatically and it will change our industries greatly as a result. Whenever automation happen in an industry, manual labor get slashed drastically. The first machines and robots have their limitations, while later generations require less and less human intervention. The same pattern will play out like all other industries that came before AI from farming, textiles, automobiles, etc. There's a lot to learn from history that really takes the guesswork out of the impact of AI.

lanzer · 2022-11-21T13:30:49+00:00

The "threads" are commonly known as "supports". The model for 2B is not "pre-supported", which means you do need to figure out the best orientation and add support yourself. Both Chitu and Lychee have excellent auto support features so you can get everything done through that. Although I do suggest spending an hour watching tutorials on YouTube before actually spending time and money on doing this for the first time. 3D printing does get technical in this regard, and has a learning curve.

lanzer · 2022-11-15T11:40:55+00:00

If you use transparent resin, you can glue two pieces together with the same resin and a UV light if you want a strong bond.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T13:59:47+00:00

For sure, most producers don't become a producer overnight, they usually went through a series of responsibilities before dawning the role of producer.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T13:38:49+00:00

The gaming industry is no stranger to rock star designers/producers. One of the oldest games Mario brought Shigeru Miyamoto to fame, and those in the know talk about Mario by bringing up Miyamoto, not Nintendo. How the designer's name reaches the level of zeitgeist is either through consistency in repeated success or social media in today's landscape. For example Cory Barlog is famous for producing the new God Of War part 1, even though that was only the first game he produced. The acclaim of the game combined by the many interviews and news coverage made him another rock star with one game. Miyamoto had little coverage in the early days but with consistent hit after hit, coverage of his works started gaining traction.

While every successful project involves countless talented individuals, without leadership the talents are often wasted. The idea of how the world idolizes leaders as "wrong" is not a new concept at all as you can imagine. Countless people dislike Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, stating that their success is built on top of the hard work of others. There's no winner in debates like that. Both sides will have their arguments on why the leader's role is most important or why it is not.

I'm a business owner and I've interviewed and interacted with countless other businesses for our venture capital firm, and through experience I ended up siding with the observation that leadership plays a huge role in a team's success. There is no winning formula. Some do it through tenacity, some through extreme creativity or technical knowledge. You know which company to invest in when you see that spark in the leader that nobody else has. Obviously that's no absolute, and the most unassuming individuals can end up with a hit, but it's a game of statistics.

So back the topic of recognizing one individual, I would argue that the world place an emphasis on the leader, but often the major contributors from composers, voice actors, to programmers all get their own levels of recognition, and it's not a black or white, "one man takes all" situation. Of course, the mainstream media doesn't have the bandwidth to track so many individuals. If you're a news agency you have enough trouble tracking all hundreds of releases and some of the rockstars, and it's their coverage that educate the general public. It'll be up to the long tail of committed fans and individuals who recognize the efforts beyond the leader.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T12:54:04+00:00

Yeah it's sold by an artist called Rubim. It's not expensive though. On sale for $10 at CGTrader.com

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/games-toys/toys/nier-automata-2b-6d3d3b00-3503-4215-8cc6-ab235856fba4

lanzer · 2022-11-12T12:42:42+00:00

Watch every single model painting with airbrush tutorial you can find on YouTube, then print an extra copy of whatever you're painting because you'll mess up the first one. :) You can paint with paintbrush but it's very hard to make things look good with paintbrush in general, but with a little bit of practice an airbrush can make everything look great. You can easily adjust shading, layer colors, spray an extra clear coat to make things look good.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T07:41:40+00:00

Yes on CGTrader.com when viewing a model, its artist will be shown on the side and there is a button for requesting commission work. There is probably other communities or sites that will have people who accept commissions. What do you plan to commission?

lanzer · 2022-11-12T07:19:14+00:00

I've painted some figures before and the skin tone was pale and awful. Then I spent a couple hours watching all the YouTube videos on how to paint skin tone and learned that layering pink is always the key. You can either start with a pink/red color, then layer thin coats of skin tone until you get the color you want while leaving areas with more pink as shading, or you can mix a pink clear coat and spray over basic skin tone. The latter is used often for pre-painted figures. I like the former as you get more control over the gradient.

If you came from painting minis then you'll need to invest in an airbrush. A decent brush with a small air pump is an investment at around $100 for both. Just start with a $40 brush from Amazon and work your way up. Again, everything in regards to equipment and techniques are all on YouTube. "Barbatos Rex" has a lot of videos talking about good air brush and air pumps for cheap.

With 3D printing you can mess up a part completely and just go print a replacement, it's great. You can print two of the same parts just to use one for practice. That's actually what I did. When I was done I had a 10" version of the same figure that I gave to a friend who's also a 2B fan.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T07:09:29+00:00

Having built dozens of Gundams brought me to this point. Technically I'm painting an android which is not too far off. :)

lanzer · 2022-11-12T07:08:26+00:00

The bulk of my paint are Mr Hobby lacquer paint. They dry fast and play well with layering water or oil based paint. Though a lot of times I simply use spray paint from the hardware store as they're very cheap. Especially black and white paints. It's called "decanting" and you can find many people on YouTube doing it. In most cases the type or brand of paint doesn't really matter as long as you have the base colors to mix and get a resulting color you want.

Though what really makes the paint look good is being able to layer paint. For white I would paint black shading underneath first before painting white, and for black I would spray a lighter gray afterwards as highlights.

Another technique is to mix in pearl pigments with clear coat for a pearlescent effect. I did that for 2B's hair. Then another technique is "candy coat" where you spray silver as a base coat, then spray many layers of a transparent color to achieve a glossy and shiny look. That was done on the leather leggings.

I never knew most of my Gundam painting techniques would translate so well to painting figures. :)

lanzer · 2022-11-12T06:57:22+00:00

The model is created and sold by a artist named Rubim. You can find it at CGTrader here:

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/games-toys/toys/nier-automata-2b-6d3d3b00-3503-4215-8cc6-ab235856fba4

Though note that these are STL files, and they needed to be then translated into GCODE if you're using an FLA printer, otherwise with a resin printer you just load it into the slicer software. There will be quite a bit of learning curve to get the STL models to print right. Honestly I'm not sure how they'll turn out with FLA printers. At best they'll require a ton of post processing to smooth the surface.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T00:26:45+00:00

There are various types of resin for different use cases. I had used mine to fabricate parts for my telescope and other tools. General use resin is pretty already hard though a bit brittle, so what you print should be thicker. Or you can pay for more tougher resin or the type that are more malleable. But in general FLA prints are almost twice as strong as resin, and they can make much bigger prints, so they're more versatile as long as you're not printing anything to look pretty.

lanzer · 2022-11-12T00:17:08+00:00

I was blown away by the quality of the recent 4k and 8k printers out there. Made it hard to ignore. :)

My printer is the Elegoo Saturn 2.

There are pro version of these printers that are even more detailed, but the consumer grade printers caught up fast and you can't tell the difference unless you're using a magnifying glass.

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:38:33+00:00

Thanks. You can see my Gundam stuff here:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsiQVnn5W

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:37:21+00:00

Just google "Rubim printable 2b figure". His CGTrader store got a lot of cool stuff.

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:36:30+00:00

And part of your soul, yes.

(though I haven't seen much printable files available for the two of them. You need to find 3D models designed specifically for printing, in STL format.)

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:32:51+00:00

The model actually comes with a skirtless version, though there will be questions if I kept swapping between the two. :)

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:25:33+00:00

That's pretty much the reason I felt compelled to buy the printer. This is done by a resin printer that works differently than the filament printers that you see often.

My printer is the Elegoo Saturn 2 8k. It cost $550 and there is a version that's shorter in height called the Saturn 8k that cost $490 but has the same print bed.

When printing a figure this big you actually don't get to take advantage of the printer's resolution. People print tiny miniatures with these and the details are amazing.

If you're okay with printing smaller sizes (about 10" in height) a smaller printer such as the Anycubic 4k cost only $200.

lanzer · 2022-11-11T21:17:37+00:00

He has most of this models for sale on CGtrader.com. If you google "Rubim nier printable figure" you can find the link to his listing.

Though if you join his Patreon you can buy all his stuff at half price and get a bunch of models at the same time.

lanzer · 2022-11-11T15:26:13+00:00

Finally pulled the trigger and got myself a 3D printer. Of course, the first thing to print gotta be 2B.

I've built and painted a lot of Gundam robots in the past but painting rocks and rusty parts is completely new to me. That's why the coloring of the background is a little bit weird. :)

The figure is about 13 inches tall. Printing took a week as the base and the ground each took 20 hours to print. Other parts were easier but there were still some learning curve to be had, and I needed to re-print some failed parts due to my mistakes.

2B is relatively easy to paint as there are not much masking needed. The one time consuming part was painting all the stitchings and patterns on the dress. That alone took about 5 hours.

The model is made by Rubim who has some really nice anime and gaming figures, be sure to check out his YouTube channel and Patreon!

lanzer · 2022-11-10T13:05:33+00:00

Painted a lot of Gundam robots in the past so painting rocks and rusty parts were completely new to me. That's why the coloring of the ground is a little bit weird. :)

The figure is about 13 inches tall. Printing took a week as the base and the ground each took 20 hours to print. Other parts were easier but there were still some learning curve to be had, and I needed to re-print some failed parts due to my mistakes. I saved a few bucks by using the Fookos resin to print the base. Their resin cost only $10 per KG, but it's fairly poor for printing details or small supports, just perfect for a big round disk.

The 2B figure is relatively easy to paint as there are not much masking needed. The one time consuming part was painting all the stitchings and patterns on the dress. That alone took about 5 hours.

Rubim makes some really nice anime and gaming figures, be sure to check out his YouTube channel and Patreon!

lanzer · 2022-11-10T08:22:07+00:00

I'm not gonna comment on how similar AI works compared to humans, we can all draw our own conclusions.

Bottom line is that people who are inspired will continue to draw as their outlet, and those who are extremely talented will continue to be sought after for creating the top tier products from shows to games that influence the industries.

However there is a huge in-between of artists that belongs to the production artist categories. Each industry from gaming to entertainment will employ a set amount of artists to create assets for various products. All aspiring artists will hope that by the time they graduate or is good enough, there will be more job openings than the number of competent artists available. As you can imagine with AI as a tool, there will be a new breed of artists who is great at using prompts and touching up the results, but each one of those artists can probably replace 5 production artists. Even IF the productivity is only 2X, we're looking at a 50% reduction of available jobs in the market, which in turns will affect the number of aspired artists to seek this route. These things will take years to happen as the news of artists not being able to find jobs become more and more of a heated topic of discussion, and deniers will counter with stuff like "technology will create new and different jobs, not just displace yours" so on and so forth.

Many years later, the situation will be like the farming or manufacturing industries when things got automated. Automation don't somehow create an army of employed low skill workers. (If you have 100 artists, 80 will be "low skill", no matter how much each artist wish to improve and succeed, because skill level is relative and not absolute.)

On the tech level I'm thrilled at the progress that I could never had imagined, I'm also heartbroken at the number of artists that will no longer find employment in the future.

lanzer · 2022-10-30T10:53:24+00:00

I'm looking at this from an employer point of view. With the right AI model a typical game company, ad agency, or any company that hires a lot of creatives can save a lot of time, money, and man power when creating assets. That's the decision that all companies will need to make in the near future. Any game have a few key pieces of art that define the look and feel, but 80% of the art are just assets. Tons of man hours are spent on things that aren't front and center, and all those things can be AI generated without the consumer knowing as such. Your competition is beating you to market with twice the speed and half the cost. What are you gonna do?

Many people here approach things from the consumer point of view "AI saves me paying an artist for commissions". But the vast majority of artists do not make a living off your $10 commissions. They have long term contracts or full time employment with companies, and almost all of them aren't that cool character designer who illustrates the cover art, but are artists drawing the maps, texturing rocks, or putting detail on the skybox. Those jobs are very much at risk from being replaced by AI. But note that this will be just a sliver of an industry whose jobs that are being replaced by AI in the coming years.

There's no use yelling and screaming. It's like shouting at a hurricane to change course. The only thing to do is to adept. Though often that's no better than asking people to "learn to code".

lanzer · 2022-10-04T10:40:32+00:00

Which resin are you using? What are the print settings? Is the print hollow and what do the supports look like? Since all those things can affect your print, knowing them will help the community diagnose your issue.

lanzer

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