hello fellow artists. google has fallen. pinterest/duckduckgo AI filters don't work. do not despair; here is a list i made of places to find reference images without having to sift through piles of worthless garbage. (for future editing convenience i am just linking my blog post on dreamwidth.)
✨ good places to find art reference that are not full of AI trash 🌈
So, uh, one of our biggest suppliers is shutting down.
We found out yesterday that our main supplier for clothing - everything from our skater dresses and skirts with pockets to swimsuits and joggers - is going out of business before the end of the month, entirely due to the tariffs. They sell to the United States, pretty much, and once the de minimis (no tariffs under $800 in value) goes away, they're pretty much boned.
Yes, we're devastated. Yes, we'll be okay - we are already looking for alternatives, and we may have to change a few things, but, we'll make it work.
We will cease accepting orders for everything in our Free Domestic Shipping collection at 11:59 PM Pacific Time, April 15th, 2025. Until then, use code BYE15 for 15% off these items. This is well before their final cutoff for production - we're playing it safe.
Enjoy free shipping to US addresses & discounted international shipping on the items in this collection!
this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣
so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.
what a lovely late-impressionist piece blended with evocative leyendecker-esque themes! why haven't you ever heard of this artist before? surely tumblr would be all over an artist like this. who is justin brown?
your two options from here are to do a search for the name, or a reverse image search. i prefer reverse image searching, particularly when it comes to a common name like "justin brown". so what does that net?
Immediately, without looking at any text, something is wrong: it barely exists. an actual historical piece would turn up numerous results from websites individually discussing the piece, but no such discussions are taking place. Looking at the text, though, does show the source-- and at least in this case, the creator was honest about their medium.
But let's also look at the "exact matches", in case a source doesn't make itself apparent in the initial sidebar results like this.
This section will often tell you post dates of images, and here it can be seen that the very first iteration of the image was posted 15 days ago. It did not exist online prior to that.
Seeing how long an unsourced image has been floating around is a skill applicable to more than just generative images! See a cool image of an artifact or other intriguing item with a vivid caption? Reverse search it! If all the results are paired with that caption and only go back a few months, you might just have viral facebook spam.
Sometimes generative creators are dishonest about their medium and do not tag it like in the example, so that's when establishing "jpeg provenance" becomes important. While it can be a little trickier to determine if someone is using generative images and not admitting to it if they aren't trying to pass it off as a classic, something to consider is the age of their account and the frequency with which they post. Here are some account red flags:
-Did they only start posting art after 2022, or if they did before, did their style/skill level WILDLY change? Not gradual improvement-- I'm talking amateur graphite portraits straight into complex digital renders. Everyone starts somewhere, newness is not a red flag alone; it's newness combined with existing in a vacuum away from any community.
-Do they post fully-finished paintings several times a week?
-Do many of these paintings seem iterative of a similar theme or subject matter ("three well-dressed young men face each other under shade and dappled sunlight")?
-Does their style change in inconsistent ways? An artist that can swap between painting like Drew Struzan and Hokusai should be pretty well known, right? Why is no one hyping this guy?!
-Do they have social media besides the source instagram? If so, what are they posting about? Are there any WIPs? Doodles? Interactions with other artists? Gallery dates? 3am self-doubt posts? Or is it all self-promo? Crypto? Seemingly nothing art-related at all for someone pushing out 3 weekly paintings?
Basically, if it's important to you to omit this stuff when you curate, please don't just smash reblog if the source doesn't seem to be the OP themselves. Seeking out sources was important even before this became an issue, now it is more than ever.
Genuinely some of the kindest compliments I've ever received on a piece of my art; I had to reblog so I could thank you!!!! Means more than I can say when people type up whole paragraphs abt something I created. I'm very happy it means something to you. Thought I'd answer your question in the meantime: this was done on a 12x24 canvas, if I recall correctly! So, decently sized, but not too huge (cannot imagine the hell that would be). I spent roughly 2 weeks nonstop working on this I'd say? Put some major crunch time in due to the exhibition it was for being way closer than initially anticipated lol. And I did have to custom color mix all my colors ^^;; definitely took a huge chunk of my time.... but not quite as much as me having to redo a lot of my line art that kept getting painted over haha. Fun fact for you! The blue background is actually just the initial wash i had planned to put over everything! I planned to go back over it fully, and thicken it, but winded up liking the wash look too much so I kept it. Thank you again for being so nice
A tutorial on meatspace I made for my patrons last year! Making things exist in the same space believably is a difficult process, but hopefully this will help drawing softbodied subjects interacting together a little easier!
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