This website uses a lot of AI artwork so lets have a talk about it.
I believe establishing rules and protections for the usage of AI in creative work is extremely important. Everything that AI has learned to do, it has learned because of the incredible accomplishments of artists and thinkers who unwittingly taught it. I grew up amazed by the artistic talents of people who illustrated comics, science fiction and fantasy stories that brought the written word to life and made what was in my imagination feel real. Visual arts, writing, and music all interested me greatly as a child, but I never had the skill or patience to pursue those skills to the level of mastery. Yes, I can sketch with pencils, yes I can play music and sing and finally I have written a real story that I love. I used to draw my characters with pencils and charcoal and then moved onto digital drawing tablets, but AI is better than I am at making pictures.
Nothing that I sell or ever plan to sell is created with the help of AI. My characters, stories, and paragraphs are purely products of my clunky imagination. I use Grammarly to help figure out where all my commas and hyphens go, and I have worked together with a developmental editor named Chersti Nieveen. My cover art is hand made by an artist named Wyndagger the old fashioned way. Look him up on fiverr if you want characters or book covers illustrated.
I started using AI art as a way to help players in my Dungeons and Dragons games visualize the 150 characters I was pretending to be, which was super helpful when I was trying to imitate the voice of a teenage girl or if my Irish accent turned a bit too Scottish. It brought the game to life to see all of these different characters and keep track of the people and places after playing 100 four-hour adventures.
Which brings us back to where we started. This website uses a lot of AI artwork. The purpose of that is purely for my own entertainment and to offer people some perspective of the world and the people I present to you. I have no intention of monetizing anything built by AI and hope that the more that people find interest in this world, the more opportunity I will have to recruit human artists to illustrate the memorable moments along the way.
The purpose of this saga is not to make money, anyway. I work full-time as a family physician with two jobs and this is my creative outlet. I will be the first one to jump in line to make sure that artists are paid for their work that gave us AI art. In the meantime, I hope people appreciate this purely for the fun that it is. Should any fantasy artists be looking for work on the side and enjoy my world, please contact me! I’d love to hire you for commissions and hopefully one day, a graphic novel.
Armor of Sorrow 