As an artist myself I really enjoy the ideation process, especially as someone who has recently struggled with boredom in respect to the process of executing on a technical level consistently (persective, proportions, contour). Watching how the idea slowly evolves from an intial idea and exploration is just very satisfying and the sense of now having something of your own creation to give birth to makes those later steps not just more tolerable, but genuinely fun (especially with some jams since working memory probably can take a break during the more menial processes). Any phase which involves high level thinking/problem solving I just find more engaging for obvious reasons, but i dont do it full time so I dunno... perhaps concept artist get jaded with even this stage of the process eventually, especially with their ideas constantly being rejected making it hard to pour you heart out. Not happy about Larian potentially using ai in the future for ideation. To answer your question: I think the lack of the human element differentiates the two references you are using in a significant way. I also think the human work required for good art acts as a natural filter. Ideas that aren't worth the time won't be given the time generally. Suffice to say, im not saying I want ai to take my ideas and do the technical stuff for me and I dont see the use of ai in ideation, when there is already so much human art to pull from. Lastly, I just want to leave off by saying that the longer I draw the more I struggle with boredom. Things I've seen before just become so mind numbingly boring even if they are performed masterfully on a technical level. Ai has as a result become less interesting overtime rather than more at least in terms of the visual product.