Quick Update & Open for Art Commissions

"L'empereur" ~ Napoleon I. Hobbyist portrait, 20 hours.

Hi all, as you may see from the first few images this is going to be a different post. A quick post to let you know what I have been doing for the last two months and literally show it to you. Of what I have been busy with. Trust me, I have not forgotten about you. Well here it is. AI + digital art, and a huge ton of them that I have been doing on a daily basis~ some are commissioned, most for personal pleasures. 

Music: Abu Simbel (Hania Rani Invalides Version)

An interesting side note is that as of 2021 and 2022, the second largest audience group on this blog is actually from France. So if I may directly speak to you dear new readers, grandes un accueil chaleureux à vous ! I hope that I am able to show you something that you have not seen before \ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) /

As some of you may know, I am not a full time history blogger and does have a very busy irl job as a full time professional digital artist and part time concept artist, however what is~ and always will be~ unchanged is my lifelong interest in history. I have been doing this for (soon to be next month) 10 years. And most of the time? This means that all of my blog posts were and is the result of the precious hours I set aside after my 8 hour work day. 

Portrait de Napoléon à cheval tendant le bras au sommet d'une colline, 1810

WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO

And since I am in the digital art field, one of the major technological breakthroughs is in the area of AI (Midjourney, DALLE, Stable Diffusion, NovelAI and so much more.) I'm sure some of you, even those of you normies who are not in the art industry have heard something about it, some time with alarming headlines like how it might take away jobs from digital artists, and it might make them obsolete etc. Well, speaking as one such digital artist who had worked in such a field for 10 years, I have not been idle about it. Because of my historical outlook I tend to be a pragmatist with all technology, and see most as an extension of a person's existing penchants and talents. A niche takes the commitment of precious time after all, and the daily want of still be in it.

I was in John Henry's position, yes, but it was entirely my choice if I wanted to end up as John Henry at his tale's end. Doomed romanticism are usually attached as throwaway tokens to poor stubborn souls who are ill suited to survive in a new world and swim in different currents. Plus why didn't they simply empower Henry or augment him into a train-powered black Iron Man? Every thought of that? Joke aside, survival is up to one's own self.

As a result of this, the last 2 months I have been aggressively studying AI and try to master it on all of the major AI platforms. From my outlook, there's simply no room for any emotional reaction to this quickly evolving tectonic shift, it's like crying and railing my balled fists at an incoming tide of tsunami. There's simply no time nor room for it, we, standing before the tide of change are but 刍狗 "straw dogs." Plus, to be a digital artist worth any salt at all is to eternally roll with the punches, and master a new program every 2-3 years. Learning such a medium is a matter of professional identity and survival. After all, I, as a said digital artist would not want those pesky AI to steal my said job, nor let any scrub NFT bro who never even painted Fus Ro Dah me into the sky~ Team Rocket style with it. I have been busy, as a matter of survival. 

REALISTIC AI STYLE

And now you can at least see that my time spent on AI was not out of neglect, but survival. A matter of Raison d'être. I'm happy to say that after 2 months of playing and tweaking with it, I have developed a style of my own and integrated some of my old style into such works. Before I started doing many of the KOEI- styled artworks inspired by KOEI, Tsuyoshi Nagano, and Italian movie posters which you likely knew me by, I also did a lot with photomanipulation and photobashing. Beside concept art I was trained also as a VFX artist and had a lot of Photobashing- Photomanipulation experiences and it was always a part of my style when I did stuff that covered European history. < My example from 7 years ago.

Minutemen Irregulars, Colonial Militia. Combination of Midjourney, Photobash, Digital overpaint.  

But because of the extremely stringent laws in the US regarding using the unlicensed likeness of actors, ® trademarked photo stock photographers, that path was discontinued. For context, most of the professional digital artists out there who works in highly realistic styles usually already do use some sort of stock as reference for the realistic poses, then (key point) try as hard as they can to make it different enough and specific enough to their themes to make it their own. 

ALREADY USING STOCKS

A major erroneous criticism against AI art as stock/ pose/ face generators is that the artwork's composition, drama, mood, and fundamental brainstorm is somehow "not theirs" - and I have seen similar arguments raised from the ranks of artists who are purely painters and digital comic sketch artists who literally hand draws everything. But that's the crux of their misaligned expectations, they came from the POV of someone who thinks that everything must be painstakingly drawn from 1 part to the next (as if all digital artists do that and that's the default process.) Where as~ well. To both them and the general populace: Digital art was never that.

Most of the time most digital artworks are a mixture of paste in armor pieces and clothing items from image search, and rendered/ modified faces. A lot of digital art is choosing a strong reference image and then repose them, put in new figures, then do your own digital overpaint and photobash of costumes/ faces etc for your own relevant assigned projects.

Simply put? Most of the time most digital artworks are a mixture of paste in armor pieces and clothing items from image search, and rendered/ modified faces. A lot of digital art is choosing a strong reference image and then repose them, put in new figures, then do your own digital overpaint and photobash of costumes/ faces etc for your own relevant assigned projects. The "not theirs" argument is therefore moot because the criticism stemmed from the painterly/ sketch school is a mismatch of expectations. Namely that most digital artists have no qualms about starting with google image searched reference images~ As long as they make enough changes. Which they know they will do anyway.

I have to stress the reason for this is because most of the time almost all of even the best digital artists you know are likely severely underpaid, they are frequently only given a very short amount of time to do something that's movie level of realistic. 

Light on the Neva- Peter the Great of Russia. Combination of Midjourney, Photobash, Digital overpaint. 

Plus, before the advent of AI there's no way else to get strong action poses of figures dressed in armor or fighting in large groups. Movies and historical TV shows thus are the best references. Again, as initial references and a starting point. It's still up to the artists do make it their own or their IP's own. If the power that be gave you Photoshop, why on earth would you only use the brush function? 

GOING FORWARD

I always missed that extremely high contrasted photorealistic style. And now with AI, I was able to be 8 of me at once, and literally worth a whole small publishing studio of artists all by myself. Style after all, is but one aspect and one arrow in the artist's quiver. I guess you will see how much I intend to honor it. (Hint, I intend to honor it.) 

For now? After these 2 extremely productive months, I believe I have marked my territories in this new world. Also no worries, I have not forgotten my KOEI style portraits either and would do more with them soon in the coming months. As I have announced some 2 weeks ago, now I would have time at my leisure to get back to publishing epic Chinese history and showcase Chinese armors as I did before September. This does mean that on a happy note that I will also be available for commissions or portraits and warriors done in this realistic style in the coming months. I will say upfront that I both intend to match my standard, but also devote plenty of hours into each painting. Those who truly knows the limitation of AI knows that they are clueless about historical costumes and fashion, so anything that you do see that is particular to the fashion of my characters, know that I spent a lot of time making it accurate and presentable for the paintings.

Anne Boleyn and young Anne Boleyn. Combination of Midjourney, Photobash, Digital overpaint. 

So? Well, now you know what I have been up do, and I have flexed enough and explained enough in my rambles. Now that you see what I can do, and know that after having made enough use of AI that I have free time to write again, you'll know two things. That I will be dedicating more time to do more articles on Chinese history in the coming weeks and also that I am open for commissions for new artworks. Stay tuned, and if you are interested, try to commission something and I'm sure we can work something out. PM me if you are interested. 

Thank you for reading this and have a blessed day. Cheers.

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Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa at Aachen. Combination of Midjourney, Photobash, Digital overpaint. 

Reference: Crown of the Holy Roman Empire Bügelkrone