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This is a fairly old post, are you still looking for advice? I'm a professional freelancer illustrator so I should be able to offer some useful pointers. My first question is, what kind of illustration do you want to go into? Because there are a lot of different fields under 'illustration', and each one requires a different set of skills and knowledge. For example, concept illustration, comic art and editorial illustration are all completely different. You need to get really clear on this because you need to specialise in one area, at least in the beginning. Once you know what kind of illustrator you want to be, you need to go all in on that obsessively and then 1) start deliberately practicing the skills associated with that line of work, and 2) do lots of brief-based projects to build up your portfolio. Your portfolio of work is the only thing between where you are now and getting hired. That portfolio needs to be catered to a particular line of illustration, it needs to show that you can respond to a brief successfully, it needs to have a consistent and coherent style and in general it needs to be very high-quality work. A portfolio should be around 10-20 pieces of work, depending on the type of illustration.

@Danioover9000 I've said for a long time that Tiktok is actual cancer. You know how things fractelise at different scales. Blood veins look like rivers, galaxy formations inside small rocks. Tiktok is a malignant spread of toxicity, like cancer, but at a larger societal level. We have the medical definition of cancer but we also have a second definition: "an evil or destructive practice or phenomenon that is hard to contain or eradicate.". Literally Tiktok. One of the biggest problems with Tiktok is that it has infected all the other social media platforms. Go onto Youtube, Facebook, Instagram. What do you see? An infinite feed of short, quick videos. Instagram is basically Tiktok now.

You're being incredibly naive if you think most people aren't slightly racist. The reality is that most people will never admit it - not even to themselves! The majority of the people in the UK probably have similar views to Leo's. But no one would say that of course. Most people around today are still slightly homophobic. But no one is gonna say that either. There's subtly and nuance to be recognized here.

No idea what the wizard discord is. There's only 1 discord application, but you can be part of lots of different discord groups, if that's what you mean? There's only 1 official Midjourney discord group.

Midjourney works through Discord so you'll need to download that and create an account. The sign in button on the midjourney website takes you to your dashboard where you can see your image generations, community images etc. But you can't do any image generations on the website - it's mostly just for viewing images. It's all very easy to access and set up.

I don't think there's any special reason for their existence over any other plant. Some plants contain certain chemicals and certain combinations of chemicals which interact with our brains. They're just a product of a spontaneous, evolving, natural world.

Leo you mentioned in your recent video you've been going out multiple times a week. I'm honestly struggling to find the motivation to develop my social skills and talk to women/date etc. It's so easy these days to just sit at home and work, stay on the computer. How do you muster the motivation the go out so regularly? Does it retract from your capacity to work, in terms of time and energy?

I haven't watched the video so can't comment on it. Although I'm making my own videos on the topic and part of me wants to stay true to Leo's most recent video and come up with my own thoughts and insights - of which I have many already. I'll probably watch the video though. My thoughts have been changing a lot in the past week or so. Particularly as I've been using the technology more and more and absorbing more AI images. I should say I don't consider prompt writing to be artistic. Is writing artistic? I guess you could call it that if you want. But I generally consider prompt writing as a whole separate field to artwork. It's like a completely different thing altogether, which certainly has merit and value in itself. But I see people online saying they're creating art for the first time in their life. I very much disagree with this. They just entered a bunch of random prompts and picked the one that looked the best. Not even remotely close to or related to the process of creating artwork. But the technology can and will be very useful in certain contexts. I think its primary and most impactful role will be in the initial idea generation stage, creating mood boards, developing an overall aesthetic for a project, and helping artists think outside the box. I can see it being really powerful for these uses. I'm still concerned about my own field, editorial illustration, because its so unique and different to other artistic domains.

It will be many generations before the monarchy is abolished. It will happen eventually but it's too deeply embedded into British culture. Like how the US will eventually ban guns, but it will be many many generations and decades in the future. All the traditionalists need to die off basically.

Well, not that many people have done 5-MeO. But of the people that have it seems like only a small number of people have these experiences. Hard to know about the dosage because there's so few reports. I'd say a minimum of 20mg is probably needed to start releasing. You don't need a "breakthrough" to God or Infinity. But my theory is that once you start having the releases on a higher dose, you'll have them on lower doses every time after that. This is all just based on my own experience so nothing set in stone here, could be very different for other people.

RIP Lizzy! May she rest in Peace for all Eternity.

Yes I have experienced this a number of times. But I've never blacked out or forgotten the experience. I'm always conscious of everything happening. Always plugged with eyes open. What you describe is basically my experience as well. There is no effort in the process, it all happens completely spontaneously once the ego has partially or fully dissolved. For me it has usually manifested as intense body shaking and vibrating but in my most recent session I started to speak really weird noises like I was speaking an alien language. Completely spontaneous. It once felt like a band of healing energy moving up and down my body. But it all feels like a massive release. Like I'm literally shaking away contractions within the body. It's a deeply pleasurable experience and I always feel profoundly lighter and free-er after the experience. Once I started having the healing energy with 5-MeO, I started having it with other psychedelics as well. Well I've only ever done LSD once since doing 5-MeO so maybe not with all psychedelics. It happens every time I do 5-MeO so I suspect it will happen every time for you as well. I haven't done enough sessions to tell whether it stops or not. I guess it probably will.

I have significant investments in the stock market. But that is a completely different matter and doesn't relate to this thread. Thank you for understanding my original post. I've got some plans for alternative sources of income. But as everyone always says there are no get-rich-quick schemes! So it'll take a lot of work and foresight to get into motion. I just completely disagree but if that's your definition, sure. I think art is defined as 'the vision behind the drawing AND the drawing itself'. Because there is no artwork without drawing (or any other medium). But we could say that drawing without creative vision is still art. A young child scribbling on paper has no vision. It's just pure creativity. A pure free flow of artistic expression.

I think there's an important distinction between being inspired by an artist's style vs copying their style. Atleast on that website, I see the AI copying the artist's style. When an artist is inspired by another artist, there are always differences. Style is actually very difficult to copy as a human because style is developed over years of work and trial and error. So it's always an interpretation rather than straight up copying. But I see the AI having the capability to fully copy their style. A very good (and sad) example on that website is Simon Stalenhag (https://tinyurl.com/2p9f5z6r). One of my favourite artists around today. It's a blatant rip-off of his style. But I suppose it could be argued that this actually increases the value of Simon's work. A rip-off of Simon's work is essentially value-less. This raises an important question of whether an artist owns copyright over their style. I'm not sure what the legalities of this are. It would be difficult to define and draw boundaries around one's art style so there's definitely some grey-area here. Yea either Adobe will buy these companies or develop their own. My bet is that they'll just develop their own and integrate it fully into all the Adobe software suite. I've already seen videos showing third-party plugins, but it seems quite rudimentary at the moment.

I've really been enjoying Destiny's streams recently. I've even been watching the Fresh and Fit podcast that features Destiny because he has such well thought out, sensible rebuttals to a lot of the often ridiculous red-pill opinions given on that podcast. I'm looking forward to Destiny debate Rollo Tomassi. And honestly I think his platforming of Nick is not necessarily a bad thing. In all fairness Nick seems like a nice dude, but of course his opinions and politics are abhorrent in most cases. Deeply misogynistic, deeply racist and bordering on insanity in some cases. But what Destiny does is not shout hate at him or troll him online, he calmly engages with his viewpoints and provides intelligent counter-arguments and rebuttals to everything he says. And I keep seeing Fuentes fans in various comments sections admitting that they kind of agree with Destiny in a lot of the things he says. Destiny is showing how to properly engage with the far right without triggering them and making them defensive. There's a lot to be learnt from his style of debate and conversation imo.

Yes, I definitely do agree with this. But the question is how many illustrators will there be and what will that job look like. Yea there's some truth in this. You can get very specific and quite technical with the prompts - weighing certain words higher than other words, weighing certain colours over other colours, and a lot more. I think what I'm curious about is whether AI-images will go beyond the bubble of 'AI-images'. I'm not sure how to articulate this, but at the moment there is a certain limit to AI-images. They're almost limited to a particular style which, for lack of a better term, I call the 'AI-style' which in itself encompasses a lot of different sub-styles but all still looks like AI work. It's like there's an infinite amount of possibilities...within a limited bubble. Just a thought. I will never incorporate AI-images into my own illustration work. I will likely continue to develop my own work and style as I have been doing for the past few years without it being infected by AI. I could brand my own work as 'pure 100% human-made artwork'. But what this might look like is just creating a whole new separate portfolio. I'd literally have a separate tab on my website called 'AI-images' or whatever. It wouldn't cross over into my social media but I might provide a link to a separate social media page.

2 good points here that I agree with. The masses, who don't consume and work with art in a more critical professional context will be enamoured and heavily influenced by all of this. And like you, I will always refer to these images as 'AI-images' and not 'AI-art'. I do not consider it art in any way because, for me, art is not only the pretty picture, but also the original and unique concept for the image before it's creation. And to you point about media companies, we'll have to see how good AI-images become. I think the distinction between AI-images and art will slowly be reduced to the point where it becomes very difficult to tell the difference. It definitely depends on the image and the prompt though, of course. But my main point here is that depending on the quality of the AI art in a year or two, there may not even be a reduction in overall quality.

A few bits of new information I took from these videos. 1) This website is designed to specifically highlight work that has literally stolen the style of human artists. Just highlighting the lack of true creativity in any of this technology. And the lack of any creativity in the prompt writers! They literally have to include 'stylised like X' because without it the work is bland and boring. https://weirdwonderfulai.art/resources/disco-diffusion-70-plus-artist-studies/#foogallery-2432/f:Simon Stalenhag+James Jean+Alex Grey 2) I suspect that making money this way will quickly become obsolete. The market will become very saturated with people trying to sell AI artwork which will reduce the artwork's value considerably. You might see a really great piece on one person's website, but then 20 other suitable works on 20 other websites that all look vaguely similar. But I'm sure some people will make money. People always come up with new ways to sell shit and make money. 3) In all fairness some of those images looked really great, around 3:48 onwards. I can see why people would buy that. 4) Despite my dislike for all of this, I feel I should probably make use it and start composing my own portfolio of A.I work. With my experience and critical eye I have a pretty good advantage over some random guy looking to make quick money.

I understand your points and mostly agree. But it's also very easy to say then when your capacity to pay your bills in 6 months time is not affected. Mine is. My sole income is from my freelance work.

Yes I agree, but definitely depends on the type of art director, as in which field they work in. An art director working in animation might be very frustrated with the technology, but an art director working in editorial might be glad of the speed and creative freedom.

I suspect that animation and manga studios will be one of the least affected by A.I. art generators. Creating complex animations, manga, anime are an extremely nuanced process. For example, the art director will often need a very specific facial expression, very specific body position and a very specific camera position, not to mention all of the other elements within the frame. There is a distinct communication problem with AI also. I think it will hit a ceiling where it just cannot produce the subtle changes and details required for something like a manga or anime. AI's don't listen or understand prompts like humans do. For example, the art director might give feedback to an illustrator saying, 'I want the character to have just a bit more frustration in his expression, and his head is titled upwards away from the camera slightly in x direction.' They could definitely be used for inspiration, idea generation, character design etc.

Thanks man, much appreciated!

Yes admittedly I do mistake those two things. I guess my purpose has always been a little vague in that it's just about sharing my artistic gifts and reaching my full potential as an artist. So yes, that needs clarifying and thinking about. But choosing illustration was a very intentional and strategic decision because: 1) Illustration was my best bet at escaping my 9-5 with an art-focused career, which has been a priority because my previous job was pure hell. With illustration, I knew exactly what kind of skills I needed to develop, exactly what kind of portfolio I needed to put together and I had a pretty clear and long list of potential clients I could work with. As opposed to something like fine art/painting where the path is more vague and clients are more difficult to attain. I also strongly dislike most forms of graphic design so I knew I didn't want that to be my medium. And things like concept design for games or film production, as you probably know, require a stupid amount of practise and skill development. I also wanted to work as a freelancer which played a big part in choosing illustration. 2) In order to become successfull as an artist you must narrow down and hyper-specialise your medium. No fine artist does graphic design, no VFX artist does editorial illustration. You even have specialised people doing background concept art, or character art, or some specific form of VFX, and they'll often focus specifically on those areas without venturing into others. So the bottom line is, to be as successfull as I want to be, you need to be exceptionally good, and to be exceptionally good you have to choose a particular medium and go balls to wall with it. I chose editorial illustration. 3) Editorial work is very well suited to my natural abilities and preferences because a) Editorial work primarily involves a lot of digital drawing/painting and this is the thing that I love doing no matter what. But editorial work is not just about creating nice pictures. It involves coming up with ingenious, highly creative, and interesting visual solutions to often abstract text prompts (hence my concerns with AI generators). There's a deep problem-solving, puzzle-solving aspect to this line of work which is very appealing to me. For example: 'Sky gazing can be one of nature's most awe-inspiring natural rememedies'. And, 'Passive aggression in the workplace': So, like I said, my hyper focus on editorial illustration was intentional, but admittedly there is no greater vision behind this effort beyond just being the best artist I can possibly be and honouring the touch of artistic talent i've always had. Very interesting share. I never thought about these technologies being used for nefarious reasons. Similar to deep fakes I suppose, but much much easier to produce something convincing.

Thanks for the blunt feedback man! Honestly really appreciate it. I've definitely been having some new (and more optimistic) ideas and thoughts since writing the original post. Yea that work is amazing. But funnily none of it would work in an editorial context. So that makes me feel a little better.

Are those images definitely AI-generated? The shapes and edges seem very well defined and 'finished' which is unusual for AI art. I can't see any of the usual distortions or small errors that are common in most AI work either.