Dearest Rachel –
So another thing that went on yesterday that I just didn’t have time to cover (because other things came up – I’m sure you can understand). Regardless of the fact that I’m not ‘meeting’ anyone at the convention this year (not that this is really any different than last year, to be fair), I did make plans for a discussion with the artist who put together those pictures of you as an Eva pilot and a haibane:
I got in touch with her about a week ago (as I already had her contact information from our back-and-forth regarding the progress on those two commissions from last year), to check and see if she was going to be at the convention. I probably should’ve looked up her area code; living as she does in the northeast corner of Iowa, I guess it would be a given that she would be here. Still, it never hurts to check.
I have friends among the otaku community (Doc comes to mind, in particular) who patronize artists at virtually every single convention, coming up with commission ideas time and again. I suppose I can understand supporting the artistic community, and it would makes sense that a fanfic writer might want an illustration of a scene from his work, but I could never wrap my head around making a practice of that so regularly.
Of course, maybe part of that had to do with the fact that I had sort of set writing on the back burner (if not taken it off the stove entirely), and just couldn’t come up with images that I wanted to pay so much money to see a stranger put onto paper with pen and ink.
I certainly wouldn’t be placing you in these images if you were still around, that’s for sure. Although, when I thought of creating an avatar of you to use in the YouTube animations, I did start with an image of Mari Illustrious Makinami; between the glasses and the pointed chin, she seemed a good start in picturing you as an anime character.
At any rate, I had another idea for her to attempt, if she could, and she was willing. Then again, when do artists pass up paid commissions?
I won’t go into too much detail as to what I have in mind; I gave her an idea of what I wanted, but I’ll explain it once she has a draft together, and I can do the complete show-and-tell process all at once. I will at least say that it has to do with Yorimoi, casting you in the role of Takako, and leave it at that. If I say much more, the girls at home will have the story spoiled for them, and I know how you were about spoilers…
Anyway, I was also curious to know as to how the nascent revolution in AI art was affecting her business – or if it even was: after all, I’m making a request to be a client once again despite my access to Stable Diffusion and the Automatic 1111 program, so perhaps it hasn’t really made that much of a dent yet.
Speaking of which, it does cross my mind that, given the ubiquity of the AnimeIowa mascot Buu-chan on much of the convention’s signage…
…it might be worthwhile to collect images of him in a LoRA of his own, and see what can be done, in terms of rendering him that much more so – and in more variations than already exist. But that’s just a sidebar to the discussion.
Which, frankly, turns out to be fairly short, as I describe the scene (all while recommending that she check out the anime for the sake of reference as well as a well-written and touching story) for her. When I ask her about the effects of AI art on her business, she admits to not seeing any noticeable change in her work queue. So I guess that’s good for her; although I wonder how long it will last.
Then again, there are those like me, who got in on the ground floor, and as the whole thing gets increasingly more complex (like ControlNET and the like, which I haven’t begun to investigate), the gate to entry into the fellowship of open-source AI aficionados gets narrower even as the various sites trying to monetize the process take root proliferate – which side of the gate are we on? And will we be taking away from artists, or be busy creating our own things? I suppose time will tell.
Anyway, I’ve really got to set down my phone; the more I busy myself with writing you about this and that, the less I manage to actually see of the convention proper. Not that there’s much here you haven’t seen before, but you know how it is. If nothing else, if I’m not careful, I might not watch where I’m going, and walk into someone while I’ve got my face in the phone, eh?
Take care, honey; I’ll be in touch, I’m sure. Until then, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 