Going on a Quest

I’ve been browsing other blogs on Reader a bit, looking for others who use their free time strangely. I haven’t scrolled long enough to get the kind of tailored results I want; that kind of thing takes time and patience.

The thing I notice the most, every time I start pawing through listicles and two-sentence prompt responses, is the profusion of AI header images. I don’t even have to look directly at them to tell they’re generated, most of the time. Some of the fake stuff has gotten pretty good, but the ones I’m talking about have the weird lighting and Pixar face structures that have been around since everyone and their uncle started using the generators for funsies.

As a grump, and someone with a sort of arts background that I don’t get to flex as much these days, I’ve never touched these tools. They make ugly plastic crap. And destroy the environment in ways that disproportionately impact people who’ve already got it pretty bad, both domestically and globally.

Images are good, though, and I don’t have an actual photo for everything, so…what am I supposed to do?

Draw pictures myself???

Yup. I think having a picture for every post is logical as well as helpful for visibility in the search-and-scroll-y sense, and drawing is fun. So I’m going to come up with something to stick in there even if I don’t have a perfect photo or a fantastically clever idea. If I can find my iPad stylus pen, maybe it’ll be digital, but I have a feeling I’m going to just doodle on paper most of the time because that’s easy and natural to me.

Is it going to look good every time? Hell no!

But I think back fondly to some webcomics (remember those?) that started out with truly dogshit art and got incrementally better over years and years of the artist doing it every week or every single day. Questionable Content is the one I’m thinking of most here—hit that First button at the bottom and then go back to the newest. 23 years made a hell of a difference.

Even if my little drawings are dumb and never improve, I think it’s important to make something look different from the rest of the internet. It’s punk. I don’t care if it looks stupid as long as it doesn’t look as stupid as everyone else.

Your homework:

Draw something all by yourself. I don’t give a shit if you “don’t know how”! You don’t even need paper or hands to do it.