I have recently found myself wanting to learn to draw. I have very minimal visual arts skills, and feel much more comfortable with a musical instrument than a sketchbook. I would like to change that, not to become some exceptional artist or anything, but because I like the idea of being able to just sketch and draw and doodle in my spare time.

I have an iPad, Apple Pencil, and ProCreate, but I don't really know where to begin. I would be most likely learning to use ProCreate at the same time as learning to draw, although I don't know if that's a bad idea or not.

Are there books, online courses, YouTube videos that you would recommend for a complete beginner?

Edit: my post has been deemed malformed, and I’d like to apologize and clarify to the community. The concept of a digital watermark signifying that the artist didn’t use any image generation, LLM, GPT, etc is the proposition. I do understand it’s tough to identify the term AI in use, since most of our tech uses some form of code to modify our work without our knowledge. More-so, I mean to identify work, art, or content that did not specifically use tools to create. Again apologies!

Post: I’m wondering the world of Tildenisian thoughts on this. Say I make a piece of art, no matter the content, and it’s completely of my own hand. Should there be some kind of digital watermark to signify that accomplishment? Maybe accomplishment isn’t the right word.

I must be looking for validation, because I’ve made art recently where folks have asked the question, “What tool did you use?” and immediately felt dread and disappointment.

Perhaps it’s not even feasible to signify since “AI” is eventually impossible to circumvent when sharing your art over these series of tubes. Oh well.

What do you fine folks think?

hey there tildes—

the job i’ve had for the past year has included heavy graphic design. i’ve never really done graphic design before so i’ve just been winging it and learning as i go. as time has gone on and the projects have become more complicated, i wonder if there’s a standardized way of organizing complex (or complex to me at least) projects in Illustrator (or for me, Affinity Designer).

one example— i create labels with 3-9 slight variations to be printed and attached to physical items (jars, in my case). these variations of the same design are roughly 75% the same, with the 25% being the “flavor” and associated text/colors. i also have to export as a layered pdf for the printing company since we don’t have the necessary equipment in-house.

another example (more related to InDesign or in my case Affinity Publisher)— a product catalogue. there are something like 30 pages and it’s just a huge click-fest of layers and nested groups.

are there any graphic designers here that have any insight on best practices when organizing large files or even practical ways to split up files?

Howdy hey folks, I've recently been trying out ProWritingAid (for the unfamiliar: a grammar/spell checker tool) specifically the premium version with the expanded tool set. And now I want to step onto the internet soapbox and talk about it. It's been.

Okay.

To preface, I've been writing (casually) for 'bout a decade, mainly short creative fiction. (And a few novel attempts. All of which are incomplete but I'm glad I did them) Throughout my time I've gone through a few tools, text editors and what-have-you-nots. With my ever so gleaming credentials established, let's get into the ramble.

Right out of the gate, automated grammar checkers and creative writing have a rather fun relationship. Half the suggestions are useful and the other half are useless. (This ratio can also tip forward and backward). They'll catch syntax errors, spelling mistakes, missing words or punctuation, all good things to fix.

It'll also flag intentional word choice, sentence structure and other creative decisions. Sometimes this can help but more often than not it'll be sucking the You out of your own words.

ProWritingAid (PWA) tries to sidestep this particular pitfall with Style Guides where it'll be more or less rigorous depending on the selected 'genre'. It's a mixed success. This flaw I don't think will ever be truly fixable given the inherent separation between Author and Tool. So we'll have to make do with clicking "ignore."

Now PWA does a bit more than just grammar check. During my time with it, I've currently used two versions. PWA Everywhere, and PWA Desktop. Everywhere is meant to integrate with your text editing software while Desktop is a contained application. They have similar feature-sets, but not identical. Specifically, Desktop has the Word Explorer feature: a tool that if you highlight a word it'll show some synonyms or you can dig deeper with alliteration, cliches, anagrams, rhymes, reverse dictionary and more. Pretty nifty. PWA Everywhere best to my knowledge and searching does not have this feature- which is disappointing.

Especially since everything else Desktop does, Everywhere does better. The UI alone is far more functional, without clipping or cramping. There's the convenience of direct integration. Some features like Single Chapter Critique (which I'll get into later, trust me) also blank screened in Desktop while working fine in Everywhere. Grand.

Besides the Word Explorer, PWA also gives you AI "Sparks" and Rephrases. I'll be entirely honest, I have these turned off (Which I am glad I was able to do). I don't have much to say here besides I like getting into the creative word weeds myself.

Alrighty, that then leaves me with two more things to discuss: Writing Reports and the Critique features.

Okay. The writing reports are useful. Able to be granular or extensive. They scan every selected element in the text and format the results into a nifty report (or in some modes, direct text highlighting) Having all that data visualized with tables, graphs and bars oh my, (with the occasional cross-work comparison) is a great look-at. Grammar-wise it'll run into the problems mentioned above, but otherwise, this has been the feature I've liked the most.

Finally I can get into the whole thing that inspired me to write this post. The Critique suite. Ohohoho, I have some thoughts about these. Human proofreaders are irreplaceable, just want to toss that out there (PWA also keeps that disclaimer in its header). My friends will never be escaping the random PDFs sent for their lovely review. I am ultimately writing for a human audience afterall. That in mind, I have run into a hilarious problem with the Single Chapter Critique.

Apparently I write too good to get use from it. Truly I am suffering here. In complete honesty, the actual point I'm trying to make is the AI is a kiss-ass sycophant. I fed five of my short stories from across the years into it, just to see what it'd say. It cannot be negative. In each and every one I was praised about various element of the stories. Glowing and gushing, could say no ill.

This is pretty useless. Sure it has the "Potential Improvements" section but it's... eh. In the name of curious study, I am having my non-writer friend compose a piece for me to feed to the machine spirit later. (I also only get three uses a day, compared to the unlimited reports with their nitty gritty)

Now, could this simulated praise be a sign I'm a genuinely good writer? Well I don't need the AI for that- I have friends zip-tied to chairs to feed my ego. (I forever cherish one of my close writing friends telling me: "You have a voice of a fantasy writer from the 70s with a thick series full of wondererous imagination written by a twice divorce middle aged man who is disgruntled with reality. It was never exactly reprinted as it was unknown, but the aging, withered pages hold such a gorgeous narrative that it sticks with you for the rest of your life.")

Back to the AI: Their shining critique falls apart when I look at the story myself and can point to several areas for improvement/refinement with a cursory reading. (Thank you creator's curse, you're my true reliable critic.)

Woe to me, I cannot escape personal proofreading. (Real talk: the hope was have it be able to do the cursory stuff so I could focus on the creative viscera. That's half the fun after all—)

There is two other Critique features, Full Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader. I have used neither of these as I do not have any large manuscripts to toss into the jaws. To ensure jolly feelings, it's also a credit based system. So let's talk money.

Scrivener, a writing workhorse that even after years of using I still find new features and has long cemented itself as my text editor of choice, was $45 for a lifetime license. Fantastic software, it has earned its reputation.

ProWritingAid, a grammar and spellchecker was $115 (discounted price) for a year subscription. (Can I mention how idiosyncratic their tier system is? Free, Premium, Premium Pro? Why??? Just name it Free, Pro, Premium. Don't stack luxury words.) For $115, I get several features I don't even use, or aren't very useful. Oh, a discount for the aforementioned analysis credits. ($25 for 1, $70 for 3, $175 for 10. Full priced it's $50, $150, $500 respectively. Spend this money on an actual person please)

Now what's worst off is I wasn't even the one to spend the $115. That was someone else wanting to support me and my writing; an act I am quite grateful for and the meaning behind it. I feel bad complaining. I have hopes for PWA. Something that can act as a quick look proofreader would be wonderful. But perhaps I'm just asking for too much from what is again, a grammar and spellchecker.

So far, I don't know yet. I don't know if I'd call it good or bad. As I started with: it's okay?

Maybe I'll do a retrospective after a while once I've utilized it longer. Maybe features will be better fine tuned in the future.

And that leads me here. What have been y'all's experience with it, if any? Searching online has been miserable; I'd like to hear from other people.

[As a footnote, PWA was not used when writing this. Kinda forgot that I never set it up for browser. Tallyho]

I wanted to practice my stagnant drawing skills and something I always liked is pixel art, but I don't know any program for that (beside Paint and Photoshop) so I would like for recommendations here, the only big feature I need is multi layers management and that preferably runs in multiple platforms (You know, like Gimp and Inkscape).

Anything that runs on Linux/Windows/Android is welcomed. I guess there should be open source apps for that, and since it's only for practice I would to waste money on paid apps.

Hey there musical types! I'm on the hunt for something I can use to create music that doesn't require a PhD in comp.sci and music theory. I downloaded LMMS and found myself immediately in the weeds, so I'm hoping someone out there can point me in a more elementary direction. The end goal is to create a theme track for my YouTube channel that has a good old fashioned 80s metal feel, if such an animal exists...

Thanks in advance!

If you are like me then you are kinda over hearing about AI all the time; I get it, believe me. I've written about jobs on here before: my day job is absolutely infested with AI jargon, most of it pretty meaningless (flashbacks to "The Cloud"), and it's a constant everywhere else too, so yeah it's a lot and it's largely unimpressive. Image gen has gotten pretty ridiculous in the last 6-12 months, and video gen seems to be taking off next, and I've successfully wrangled various chatbots into helping with coding projects, etc.

Probably none of this is news to you, but I just found out that I can get AI to edit video. I've done a lot of short-form editing, and recently picked up some side work that is much lengthier, without realizing that the time I would spend hunkered over going through it would be exponentially more lengthy. Painfully so. Cue signing up for a trial of AutoCut, and hot damn it's like living in the future. I am as we speak watching it delete gaps, cut to speakers, add captions that are mostly correct & even formatted & unbelievably also do the VHS singalong/Tiktok "highlight the word being spoken" thing that all the cool kids are doing these days. It's not perfect, it's kinda finicky—I'm having to use a V1 when V2 is supposedly much better, and I'm having to chunk these beastly premiere timelines to get it to do anything at all, but wow—if this is your day job, are you worried? Cause it's a game changer for me but no one is going to replace me because no one else would bother messing with it lol, but on a corporate scale do people know about this stuff yet? I'm thinking our jobs may not be replaced by AI, our jobs will probably just become AI babysitting.

Not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I wondered about this recently. I took three seemingly-solo Youtubers as examples at different scales.

Penguinz0 has 16 mil subscribers, and as far as I know his uploads are just him talking into the camera, giving his opinion about recent things in games and pop culture (I could be very wrong about that, I don't know why he's popular). Looks like he uploads at least a few times a week, so that could be manageable.

Videogamedunkey has 7.5 mil subscribers, and he used to do weekly uploads until very recently, I think. Given that his humor and editing style is a big part of his content, I'd be surprised if he's got anyone else working on his vids.

Northernlion has just over 1 mil subscribers and uploads multiple videos daily, and (in)famously refuses to do any editing. He just basically streams on Twitch all day and uploads clips from that.

I would imagine the day-to-day running of the business, i.e. answering emails and phone calls, would be where having help is most advantageous as you grow, but it also probably depends a lot on what kind of content you make. How big can you get before it's too much for a solo operation?

Writing, at its core, is a shared experience between the author and the reader—an exchange of thoughts, emotions, and ideas. This connection, built on trust and authenticity, is the bedrock of any meaningful relationship, even one as seemingly one-sided as the parasocial relationship between an author and their audience.

When AI is introduced into the realm of writing, it disrupts this delicate balance of trust. Readers inherently believe that they are engaging with the genuine thoughts and expressions of a fellow human being. However, the introduction of AI blurs this line, creating a scenario where the words on the page may not be the product of human experience or creativity.

Imagine delving into a piece of writing, believing you are connecting with the unique perspectives and emotions of another person, only to discover that those words were crafted by a machine. The sense of betrayal and disillusionment that may follow disrupts the very essence of the reader's trust in the author. It's akin to thinking you are having a heart-to-heart conversation with a friend, only to later realize it was an automated response.

This violation of trust erodes the foundation of the parasocial relationship, leaving readers questioning the authenticity of the connection. Human communication is a dance of shared experiences and emotions, and AI, no matter how advanced, lacks the depth of personal understanding that defines true human interaction.

In essence, while AI may expedite the writing process and provide creative insights, it does so at the cost of jeopardizing the sacred trust between the writer and the reader. As we navigate this digital era, let us not forget the importance of preserving the authenticity that underlies our human connections through the written word.

Generated by ChatGPT.

Hi Everyone!

First post on Tildes. I'm excited to have been invited to give it a shot!

I was wondering if anyone here is using Unreal Engine 5 for any project their working on? It could be game design, virtual production, architecture, automotive or you name it!

I'm currently testing out numerous areas of Unreal Engine 5 for virtual production.

Thanks!!

Inspired by this post on lobste.rs, I thought it'd be fun for us all to post our homepages and talk about them. I'm posting this in ~creative because I think of a homepage as a creative endeavor, but feel free to move this to ~design or ~tech or wherever, mods.

Just post your homepage as a top-level comment, and we'll workshop in replies!

HELLO TILDES USERS. IT IS I, FELLOW HUMAN, BISHOP.

As you may have read in an earlier post of mine (ok probably not it was a one-off comment, not like I reinforced the thought anywhere.)

I do indeed hold the belief that code can be, itself, art, in the right context.

Or, rather, that code can be used for artistic purposes.

I dunno.

That's why I'm posting.

What would you say is the most artistic or, at least, creatively designed website or mobile app that you've seen?

I've got some creativity a-stewin' away in my head, and I need a new excuse to kill some time on frontend.

So, fellow humans, hit me with your best shot duh-nuh-nuh-nuh fire away.

What ya got?

(@mods fix my tags please. Not sure what to put, but you might have a good idea. Ya boy's had a few.)