Hey @glitchdx@lemmy.world,

First, I think your sketch is great!! I'd encourage you too feel pride in it, because you did it! I bet it's better than you could do a year ago, and honestly a lot of people could never do that much (including me). So keep running with it.

Second, you said you are genuinely trying to get better at art. So keep putting your efforts where your mouth is by continuing to practice, and not taking any shortcuts to the finish line just to get a finished product. Shortcuts don't make you better, grinding does.

Finally, is it slop, yes, but I'm a bit more lax on your question about using ai-slop than some others. By example I mean:

• If your goal was simply to make (with a LLM assist) some cool looking desktop background for your own personal use it whatever. Go for it, enjoy! But don't go sharing it saying 'look what I did,' cause you didn't, fully.
• If your goal is to publish something (& you mentioned 'your book'), esp to sell it, I personally would take no pride in sharing something a slop-bot was used to get it out the door, nor would I appreciate it being shared with me. And I'd love for you to feel pride in every aspect of your personal projects.
  • And if you've got a vision for a project, and you're worried it'll never happen without help, I get that. But while it could be hard, maybe you could search for another artist whose style you like (there is a LOT of starving ones right now) to partner up with you. Maybe you commission them, maybe you become co-owners of this project, etc, but ultimately it becomes a project two+ people could be proud of! 🥳
    • And if you get to that finish line the way a creative should, I'll honestly be super stoked for you. So let me be first in line to pre-order the fruits of your labor. I believe in you! Keep us posted.

I don't think my keyboard is as smart as y'alls:

I'm sorry for being me home something yummy later lunch w friends giving was nice if you can add dog food and peeps still love you.