The Processpod: A magnetic lapboard!
+May Plans, and asking for help if you need it.
Hi all hope your spring has been good, but for many people right now in the comic scene things have been shocking and kind of dark. And for me personally that's following the last 6 months of Horror as I watch what's being done in Gaza.
One of the things that's contributed to me being quiet on here aside from not being very productive with personal drawing, it's just not knowing where to start. What to talk about, to focus on.
I was thinking about talking about a few aspects of what went down with Ed Piskor and people's reactions to it, but after spending a lot of mental energy on that over the last few weeks I felt like I actually rather do something more positive/upbeat.
The only aspect I do touch on is if you’re feeling at risk, please don’t isolate, reach out. If you can’t or don’t have family or friends you feel you can reach for, then call 988 at least for emergency help.
Instead I decided to record a short video about a fun augmentation of my drawing lap board, adding a magnetic surface to it with a sheet of 430 stainless steel!
And figuring out how to manually chamfer and round the edges on that also made me realize how easy it was to modify some of the cheap multi-tools that I own that I don't particularly like holding in my hand because of their hard edges! So here's my take on a Tested like show and tell!
I did some portraits to try it out and it worked well!
Mentioned in this as well is the fact that I'm planning a project for this May with some others, that's both away from me to try to systematize getting back into doing some personal drawing, and to partake in a challenge / campaign to talk about the rise of Generative AI.
Those two things are related. Back in 2022 I was talking about AI in the audio podcasts here in substack a fair bit, my post on December the 5th of that year I think was the last time. I was interested in it and exploring what it could do but as I learned more and more about how had been developed I became very disenchanted.
I really don't have a whole lot of time for debates about what is or is an Art, there are are very clear language definitions for the word Art that it's a human produced thing, and then within that constraint I think there is a great deal of latitude about what can or cannot be Art. I find discussion around that often to be either in bad faith, or a bit wanky.
What really put me off generative image platforms is what I learned about the process of developing them, ethical oversights there in. And the unethical platforming to displace human labor before regulation is in place to mitigate the extent of which that can be done and to make sure that humans are ultimately looked out for.
So pretty much starting in January 2023 I found myself not exactly burnt out as just uninspired and stuck when it came to personal work. I've done a few little sketchy things here and there and I draw all day for my day job so it's not like I've totally given up on it but my focus and motivation was under review.
Adam Savage talks about work that appeals to him having ‘a point of view’, and often not being able to start on something until he has a point of view about what he's doing. And I relate to that a lot I think, it's a good way of describing how things work for me as well. And I think it gets to why a lot of generative imagery ultimately ends up being kind of hollow, with some would say is soulless.
For my own Creative Drive, I think ultimately well I had some enthusiastic thoughts about the potential for ethical applications of AI as an artist tool, I found what has been created to not be really what I have in mind. It just tries to do the work for you rather than facilitate the work. Some artists are incorporating it into their process as a kind of collage raw material, for those who've been doing photo bashing for a while this is a natural evolution of that process.
But that was never really my thing. I was playing with it a little bit as a ideation foil, not really using any of the things that generated directly. When I punched in a prompt about a notion that I was toying with I actually found AI very prone to generating all the more obvious things. Everything that I'd seen before. If you know how the platforms are developed this is a pretty logical outcome.
I've always believed in getting the obvious answers to a problem out of the way in order to really start digging into finding new Solutions and I was toying with using the AI as a way to consider and eliminate all the things I didn't want to do. Once I'd seen them I could ignore them and try something else. It was creating something to react against.
But if anything this just underlined that I want to get back to a more tactile organic art making process. Working digitally all day doing props for animation has been an effective way to make a living but it's not the most rewarding experience for me and this Advent of AI generation only seem to emphasize my discontent with that. But I didn't have a clear point of view of what I wanted to do about it.
After a lot of thinking and debating with people about the merits and issues and ethics around generative AI - what I'm going to start calling DeGenerative AI, or even more fun DeGenerative PISS!
I think I've started to focus in on a point of view. It's a bit reactionary but that's what's coming out of this. I was already working on one story for Mind Engine - The Box - that was being drawn and Inked on paper for organic feel and to spend some time at the drawing board working on Bristol again.
But I've been experimenting with different degrees of doing digital work, from working on the new Armageddon blues and a mixed digital and analog modality. To taking a shot at doing an all-digital version of Dream Life Book 2. And big chunks of an all digital version of A Bastards Tale.
The last year's contemplation has given me moments to pause and reflect on these decisions. I don't think I want to scrap the 12 pages I finished of Dream Life in Clip studio, or just abandon using digital tools entirely but my appetite for working at the tablet is really reduced right now. So I think I'm going to go shift back to something closer to how I did the first book of Dream Life which was mostly analog using digital tools to enhance after the fact.
I feel like a feature of the first issue of Mind engine is going to be documenting this flirting with more heavy use of digital tools and then swinging back to a traditional analog process?
I'm not totally sure, we'll see. But to get back into the routine of a more playful practice of Ink on paper I'm looking to partake in this May project and I'm going to have more posts about that soon inviting others to join in with information about what we're doing.
Until then, take care of yourselves!
-Max