AccessWorld

Nobody becomes an artist thinking they will make money. It is very difficult to make a living in art, unless you have many contacts and a certain status, and those types of artists are not the ones that populate these galleries, and even less so in the environment that I operate in.

The only reason we do it is because we love art. At some point in our lives we discovered that we love art. In my case it was when I was 5 years old. Just as some of you discovered a love for music, sports, etc. It was a choice that perhaps occurred because I found a way to communicate and entertain myself through drawing. I was not born drawing well, and because I had no tutorials or drawing books available, I learned by trial and error for many years.

The supposed privilege of the artist that some idiots raise as an excuse to justify AI-Gen does not exist. Why did I entertain myself drawing? Well, because I didn't have neighbors my age when I started drawing. Did I spend my allowance on comics and pencils? Well, yes, just like other kids spent it on video games. My drawing materials are not as expensive as the graphics cards that some prompters buy.

That's why one of the things that irritates me the most is the slogan "I'm passionate about art and now that AI exists I can unleash my potential." First of all, when people feel passion for art, they MAKE ART, and with this we must understand what it means to make art: Fail, try, improve, fail again, improve again, etc. It is a process that every artist does, where he learns, gets frustrated, improves, conceptualizes, develops, creates his style, tests, etc. If you had to wait several years until they invented a magic machine with which you can achieve immediate results by writing instructions, then you don't have a passion for the arts. You may "like art," but you don't feel passion. And AI-Gen don't unleash your potential, they just stunt it. You could become an artist but you chose to be the client of a machine that steals styles without consistency, where you chose not to think, not to conceptualize and just play at using a blender that allows you to create 1000 empty images a day while you think you are standing out." your full creative potential", when instead you are just choosing to be a mediocre dependent on a machine. And if you also start "selling" those images, you are not only mediocre, you are also a scammer.

If you have a passion for art, take a pencil and paper and draw. Enjoy the process. They may fail, it is obvious and part of the process, but those failures are useful, we learn from those failures. Now they have hundreds of thousands of video tutorials at their disposal, art books everywhere, etc. Don't choose to be mediocre.

On this new anniversary of Deviantart I can say without a doubt that I have nothing to congratulate this platform, which I have seen rapidly degrade in the last year.

Many artists who go through Deviantart have good memories of this site. I still have and wear several t-shirts that I bought at the deviantaart store almost 15 years ago. Thanks to a meeting of "deviantart artists" in my city I met my girlfriend. And also this platform helped consolidate my fan base.

But for several years now Deviantart has systematically failed the community, a fact that has found its zenith in the free rein that has given untalented, unscrupulous and unethical people to have crowded the platform with the images generated by AI. People who are "2 months old" as Deviant and have uploaded thousands of images.

Deviantart is unfortunately only a poor shadow of what it was and what it could have been, and today it is on its way to becoming a swamp of soulless AI-generated images.

A pity for Deviantart. Now that DeviAInt art continues to live, a real shame and a bad shadow of what it could have been.

Today, January 1st, I have a birthday and I want to thank everyone who sincerely supported me during these 17 years that I was on Deviantart. Those were good times and they helped me to make myself known and at the same time meet other artists.

Unfortunately, Deviantart has been going downhill for years, but the invasion of AI images is the last straw, and the truth is that I have no obligation to stay on a platform that I feel does not respect me or my fellow artists. That's why I will leave my Deviantart account inactive and I will only keep it to be able to see the art of the artists that I follow and support.

You can follow my work on Pixiv or on my Twitter account.

My infinite thanks to those who support real artists. See you.

The way things are going, it's possible, not 100% sure, that this year will be the last one on Deviantart. I will look for some other platform where there is a little more respect for artists. It's been almost 18 years here, but I don't think things are enough, especially with the issue of having an open gallery.

In case of finding a better alternative and moving, I will notify you in due time.