Pencil Pests, Bounty Hunters and Terrible Betrayals

Recently, I have had a bit of a crisis in regards to my digital work. For anyone who has missed it, Adobe has betrayed the art community by first launching its own AI art software, then changing its Terms of Service to allow it to train that AI art software off of its user's data without their consent. Essentially, they are stealing our work to build a set of AI tools with the goal of making human artists obsolete. While Adobe eventually walked back some of the more egregious aspects of this new policy, they left the door open for themselves to still do it, suggesting that, they've ALREADY done it, and are now merely looking for legal cover when they fully implement it. (Just like DeviantArt did when they launched their AI...) It is an incredibly disappointing move by a company I have used and trusted for almost 3 decades. It is a BETRAYAL. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on them since, after all, EVERY company who CAN steal our work to make an AI, IS already stealing our work. It cannot be stopped at this point. But we don’t have to go quietly into the night, and we don’t have to make it easy. Glaze and Nightshade and Cara and Krita and all the ways we are switching right now, and protesting this in what ways we can. I don’t know what to make of it all yet, but I am so disappointed and perplexed by this that I’m giving up on digital media for awhile, and going back to exclusively traditionally-made work for the foreseeable future.

Now this leaves me in a pickle as far as the Martian of the Month project goes. It was always meant to be a primarily digital project. To square this circle, I am going to do a few things: First, MORE traditionally-drawn concept sheets! The page above features a familiar layout of alien creatures. These pages have become the thing I enjoy the most about the series and this seems like a great opportunity to lean into making more of them, with the goal of an eventual alien sketchbook in mind.

Second, I'd like to start expanding these concept sheets to include the more complex characters. Which brings me to the next phase in the Martian Series: THE BOUNTY HUNTERS.

Our first one here, is a psychopathic, murderous space cat, "The Manticore". 

In the game you can expect to occasionally run afoul of bounty hunters like the Manticore, and will be hunted by them through asteroid fields and spacestations. They are typically wildly overpowered, (as seen by its ludicrous array of weapons). Flight is preferable to fight with these characters, at least until much later on.

These concept art spreads, while not in color for awhile, will give me a chance to explore the tech of this world, as I develop out the more complex characters and the shape languages for each one, as seen in their armor, weapons, gear, and little helper drones. At some point we will do some votes on which ones we might do some watercolor studies of as well.

While this month's characters were all about rage and fury, next month's will focus on some killers who are much more cold-blooded:

In closing, the bigger discussion on what to do about unethical companies is just getting started. AI has come for our souls and we are all having to decide wether we will fight it, embrace it, or simply ignore it. I look forward to discussing it here and on Twitch with you as I work through it all in my own head. In the meantime, I plan to dig out the old-school pencils and watercolors to keep making monsters.