I had so much fun working on these. I'm trying to embrace my sketch lines more because honestly I think they're prettier and more expressive than any line work I've ever done. Plus the colorshift skin was such a fun experiment!
I just had to leave a discord server full of people I considered IRL friends (we had weekly meetings before I moved out of state) over the use of AI in an educational comic I'm working on. I know AI is controversial. But I tried my best to be respectful about it. I disclosed its use, offered to hide it with spoilers, and even took it all down when a "No AI" rule was implemented. I still got blocked by a bunch of people, and ignored by the others.
This doesn't sound like full meltdown material without context though. I'm in the middle of a divorce. Living in a new state, starting a new job, restarting everything from scratch. I've been struggling wildly with depression, and am grasping at straws to stay afloat. I spent over 6 months not even able to draw, and that's usually my favorite thing to do. So when I got inspiration for this comic, I felt like I finally had something to grab onto.
Now, AI for a comic for most people is absolutely unnecessary. I on the other hand, cannot make one without assistance. I don't know if I have ADHD or something similar, but I get overwhelmed by projects. I'll get 3 pages in, get overwhelmed, abandon the project, and come back 5 years later to start the cycle over again with a slightly better art style. To circumvent this I use AI to organize thoughts, break things into smaller chunks, and take care of tedious things like document-style pages (It's and insurance/secret agent comic. Think government files and dossiers)
Today I went back to the server after thinking things over and decided to raise money to hire someone to help me. I asked for ideas on how and found that a bunch of people in the server had blocked me. I know because I can't react to anything they write.
So I'm over here, scared, alone, restarting everything, trying to figure myself out again, and grasping at anything I can reach to keep from going under. I finally find something, and try to share it with "friends" as respectfully as I know how, and they cut me off when I need community the most. They all know what I'm in the middle of right now. Only one of them has checked on me since I moved and the rest are I guess too up on their moral high-horses to care that sometimes you have to take meaning in life wherever you can get it. So now I'm down another community and I feel like I'm running our of places to turn.
I apologize for the length, and potential incoherency of this rant. I appreciate anyone who stuck with me to the end anyway. Thanks for letting me vent.
I hope this fits here. I draw 80% of this educational comic I'm working on digitally and do all of the research for it myself to ensure accuracy, but I use AI to help me arrange story beats, expand on ideas, and to generate document-style pages. It's called Mission: Insurable and I'm developing it as a study aid for myself as I prepare for my life and health insurance licensing exam, but I'm also putting it on webtoon as I go as a free resource for other students who may want to use it.
I hope this still fits here. I draw 80% of this educational comic I'm working on, and do all of the research for it myself to ensure accuracy, but I use AI to help me arrange story beats, expand on ideas, and to generate document-style pages.
I made a comic about my soon-to-be line of work and tried to share it with other professionals. Apparently I broke subreddit rules by doing so. I reached out and tried to explain that I read the rules but must have misunderstood them (I did miss one about user age and that's on me, but I doubt that's an offense serious enough for permaban. Surely I did something worse?) And they told me I didn't read, was gonna be a problem, and muted me from further questions. I even clarified that I wasn't looking to reverse the ban. Just wanted to know what I did. The comic is educational, not for profit, fit within the group's AI guidelines (I hand draw most of it but text based "document" pages are hard, so I get some help) as far as I could tell anyway. Maybe it's because the group is for professionals and I'm still being educated to become one? That's the only other thing I can think of that I might have done. I've reread the rules about 5 times now and I still don't understand the problem?? Maybe it's because I'm on the spectrum but I also just don't understand shutting down and muting someone genuinely asking questions to improve. What the actual heck?!