MCRE1201

Starting this week, you'll notice a small credit on the bottom left of my comic strips: "Backgrounds by Dall-E 3." I actually started using Dall-E pretty much exclusively for my backgrounds a few weeks ago, when the action transitioned to the golf course -- and so far, I'm enjoying it. And I don't want to mislead anybody as to the nature of my artwork, hence the credit.

I get the impression sometimes that using AI is not a popular thing to do around here, so I figure I should explain how and why I do, since I think it's become kind of obvious at this point. Mind you, I've already disclosed this in a few of my recent comic strip posts, but I figured I might as well consolidate my thoughts into one journal entry here, for all to see.

The main thing to be aware of is that the only purpose for which I use AI is, per the credit, backgrounds. I detest drawing them, but even if I liked doing it, I would not be able to do them in the style I want for my comic strip. See, my aim for "Tiffany and Friends" is to make it look kind of like stills from an animated cartoon. Yes, I could go minimalist with the backgrounds; just draw in the important details, etc. -- and that works just fine for many people, and I very much like a great many comics done in that style. But that's not the look that I want for my strip.

And while I can draw cartoony characters, I cannot do the sorts of lush, detailed background paintings you used to see in pretty much every form of animation from Disney movies to anime to the Saturday morning and weekday afternoon cartoon shows I grew up with -- and I'm certain that even if I practiced for a hundred years, I would never be able to do it. Painting is absolutely not my forte.

(Plus, even if I could manage it, the time it would take to paint the backgrounds to my liking would mean I'd be doing something like one strip a month instead of two a week!!)

So I've been experimenting with AI for backgrounds. I had been looking for some time for a shortcut to help me with them. It began over a year ago with a 3D home design app that I used to create environments. Then at some point maybe around nine months ago, I started taking those environments and running them through an AI program to make them look more like animation background paintings -- with varying results.

But now, since the launch of Dall-E 3, I'm at a point where I just go to Bing Image Creator and enter in a prompt for the background I want, in the style I want. It typically takes a number of tries to get what I'm looking for, but it works. You'll hopefully have noticed lately in all the scenes set on the golf course that the backgrounds are very "vintage 2D animation" in their appearance. That's the intention, at least.

The way I look at it is this: when they did all those old cartoons (and still to this day, even if not in the same style), there were the folks who drew the characters and there was the team that did the backgrounds. That's basically what I'm going for in my own work. Only it happens that my "background artist" is a computer rather than a human being.

Ultimately what this comes down to is that I have a full-time day job. Drawing is my hobby, and as such I want it to be fun. I want to produce my comic strip on a regular basis and have it look the way I want it to look -- and I want to enjoy making it, with no resentment over forcing myself to do the parts I don't like. So in order to do that, I'm using AI for backgrounds. To me, it's nothing more than another time-saving shortcut, in much the same way as I will often recycle "stock images" of the characters with their expressions changed, rather than redrawing them every time from scratch (another trick I picked up from the cartoons of my youth, specifically anything done by Filmation). I'm all in favor of whatever helps me keep to my schedule!

Again, I know the use of AI is anathema to many. And I totally get it from the point of view of the artist who relies on their work to pay the bills. If I were as talented as those artists, sitting in their shoes, I would probably have an entirely different outlook on this whole AI situation! But like I said, this is my hobby. I do it for fun, not to make money (at least not for a living; I will occasionally take paid commissions for a little extra cash if they really interest me).

Hopefully those of you reading my strip understand my reasoning for using AI -- but if you disagree, I completely respect that, even if it means you decide to stop reading in protest.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled T&A comics!

Just wanted to note that I have a surprising amount of content coming this month! In addition to the eight regularly scheduled "Misadventures of Tiffany" comic strips, there are also no fewer than four pin-ups coming throughout the month:

• My annual STAR WARS-themed image for May the Fourth tomorrow

• A picture of Maria, from the current Tiffany storyline, showing off her underwear (It'll make sense when we get there -- but even if didn't, would you really care?)

• A "Milf's Day" illustration for Mother's Day (also tied in with "Misadventures of Tiffany")

• Another installment in the "Mega Woman's Fiendish Foes" series that I mentioned I had drawn last year but never posted.

This may be the most material I've ever managed in a single month here, so I thought I'd take a moment to acknowledge that!

Hey, gang -- once in a while, I doodle something more graphic than DeviantArt typically allows. In the past, I have either skirted regulations by posting these to Dropbox or my Stash and linking to them, but that always felt a bit like breaking the rules. So starting today, I've created a Premium Gallery in which I'll post the smut as I come up with it.

I'm honestly not looking to make money off of this; I just want to be able to keep everything on DA for folks to see. So I set the price as low as allowed, at $1 USD for unlimited access to everything in the gallery. If you're so inclined and you've a buck to spare, please feel free to check out the new gallery here: https://www.deviantart.com/mcre1201/gallery/83512594/tiffany-after-dark

However if you're not interested, that's fine with me! There are only four things in there right now, with a bit of backlog yet to come over the next couple weeks (and one brand-new piece to finish it all off), but this gallery will not be updated on a regular basis. Rather, I'll add new pieces once in a while, whenever I need to get a dirty drawing out of my system.

Lastly, my pledge to you, the reader: At no point will anything in this gallery be considered essential to the ongoing Misadventures of Tiffany saga. It will usually be "in canon", but there will never be a case where you need to read the paid content to understand what's going on. Anything there will strictly be bonus material.

That said, enjoy (if it's your thing)!

So I’ve been working for the past few weeks on a short comic strip serial starring Tiffany and friends, and I think I’m far enough ahead of schedule that I can start posting it next week! Hopefully folks will like it. I have no idea how long it will last, but probably a couple months at least. It’ll be one 3-4 panel strip every weekend starting next Saturday.

I’m about to post a poll. Here‘a the backstory:

I generally try to keep my artwork “R-rated”, with “Cinemax-style” sex scenes (usually just as single-panel punchlines), if you know what I mean. But I see so many people online who draw full-fledged porn, that I’m thinking maybe I should try it to see A) if I enjoy it and B) if I’m any good at it. So I’m contemplating a sexually explicit comic story featuring characters from Tiffany-land.

Of course if I did this, I would need to host it elsewhere to avoid violating DeviantArt’s terms of service, But that’s something to figure out later. For now, I just want to gauge interest! So please vote in the poll one way or the other. Thanks!

UPDATE: I didn’t get a ton of votes, but of the few I had, the majority was interested in more explicit drawings. Now I need to mull over whether I really want to go that route, and if so, how to implement it.