Tacitus' Den

(...) Or the eternal issues of a silent man, who's somehow not so short with words (at least, when writing)...

[asmaa-shafik]

New workshop

Habiba -my new student- i taught her how to paint using different types of media.

Proud of her works

[everythingfox]

Pixar lamp

(via)

[leidensygdom]

WOTC is hiring a "Principal AI Engineer"

After multiple scandals of them trying to "covertly" using AI (and denying it, when found out, up until the evidence was too big to deny), declarations from Hasbro's CEO, Chris Cocks, saying how much he loves AI, after their empty promises with dubiously worded "No, we won't use AI (in our final products)", Wizards of The Coast is now hiring a "Principal AI Engineer".

And as highlighted (the highlighted version was posted by @/SpicyEncounters on Twitter), this does include AI usage for all sorts of things- Including writing, audio, and art. (Which is an incredibly broad amount of subjects, but the wonders of AI is being able to have a single guy hitting the keyboard 'til the plagiarism machine pukes something decent)

This is no surprise to most people, I think, but it's still a great time to just boycott WOTC, and make noise about this everywhere: Social media, on your way out for your DnD Beyond subscription, amidst many others. Don't give them the money. The cents they save from not hiring artists shouldn't be worth much amidst many users refusing to use their products and bringing their money elsewhere. They already had massive layoffs- Which of course heavily hurt their artists, and this was the "natural", greedy next step.

I keep thinking about getting sent death threats over bringing up this in the past with people who were too deep in on the corporate bootlicking. Who would've thought that the same company that threw their creators under the bus with the OGL would now be looking forward to keep running them over for a measly profit.

[spontaneouscollapse]

Hello! I come with some good news! In the EU, a law has been passed restricting generative AIs (particularly ones that pose a high risk). I hope other areas in the world follow suit, but this is huge! It'll take a while to be applied as well, though this is still a major win for everyone.

A New Law Restricting Generative AIs Passed in Europe

The newly endorsed act aims to ban "unacceptable AI practices" in the EU. Finally.

[demonicae]

What this new law means...

AI will be banned from being used for the following purposes:

'Biometric categorisation systems' using sensitive information scraped from images on the internet and CCTV footage.' This means people can't use AI/scraping to create a catalogue for;

facial recognition databases.

'Emotion recognition' in schools and workplaces

Social scoring systems

Predictive Policing

Being designed to manipulate human behaviour

People will gain the right to file complaints regarding AI systems.

AI developers must minimize risk to people, maintain usage logs, ensure transparency, and implement human oversight.

AI models will have to comply with EU copyright law

This means AI devs will HAVE to provide a comprehensive and detailed summary of the data used to train their AI's.

Any AI generated video, image, or audio (including deepfakes) MUST be labelled as such.

This is not in force for at LEAST two years. However it *is* going to become law (with an overwhelming majority of the European Parliament voting in favour, 523 in favour, 46 against, 49 absent.)

This is the first what is likely to be a slew of laws and regulations regarding the usage of AI.

[8pxl]

PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. if you don’t have the option available, update your app or close your browser/refresh a few times. important to note you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)

[miscellennyous-art]

spriggan girl

[tacitus2313]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all and Happy Holidays!

[spandexinspace]

I need everyone to know that the ship Götheborg, the world's largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship, answered a distress call the other day.

Imagine waiting for the coast guard or whatever to show up and instead a replica of 18th century merchant ship pulls up and tows you to the coast.

[zoi-no-miko]

The thank you letter, oh my heart!!

[tacitus2313]

Day 31, Fire.

… And the last one! For Fire prompt, I decided to go with something I’ve actually done on previous Inktobers (my very first one in fact). At the time, I wasn’t satisfied of that particular entry, so I wanted to redo it, but better…

Is it really that better? I don’t know…

But here we are with a little Balrog from Tolkien’s books!

And it’s kind of twice more relevant, because I’ve recently started a playthrough on “Return to Moria”, which is a game where you can play as a Tolkien lore accurate Dwarf : meaning you can customize your avatar in game to show a beard, even for female characters, if you want to…

So yeah : my entry for Fire! (And with that said, I can finally get free time again)!

[tacitus2313]

Day 30, Rush.

I must confess i’m getting really tired of the challenge now. I try to do my best to keep up with the will to draw but it's almost gone for this one. So i will most certainly go back to it at some point after the challenge (‘cause i still don’t like the result so far).

But for now… It depicts a battle scene with Iris, yet again, with her good friend at her side (the dream wanderer). But this time around, she’s wearing at least some degrees of armor : more specifically a chainmail as well as a pair of greaves. She also got an hoplon (or Aspis) : a shield that can get quite heavy.

So, here we are : Rush!

[tacitus2313]

Day 29, Massive.

This one didn't turn out like i imagined. Should've put some buildings in the background maybe : just for the sake of adding a better sense of scale. But, well...

It's suppose to represent an assault Bot/ Mecha. More specifically a "Crusader" type (mark 5). It belongs to the lore of my main Webcomic : "Bloody Bastard"! It is meant to make its first appeareance somewhere near the end of the third book (we're still technically right after the events at the end of 2nd book : Bastion BlackJack being a special issue). But shht "i'm not supposed to tell you that yet"!

[tacitus2313]

Day 28, Sparkle.

[tacitus2313]

Day 27, Beast.

Honestly, i’m arriving to a point where the challenge becomes a bit “boring” (to say the truth). But we’re really close to the end : so, got to hang on!

For “Beast” prompt : a Besticarius from my “Chronicles Inked with Blood”! Besticarii are the mindless henchmen of their sleeping master (Incubo) : they would roam the land of that waking dream in search of any lost humans (or hunting ones). But some of them have a different purpose. Like this one : “the passer on the Rubicon river” (leading to a single Tower which importance is significant to the plot of my webcomic) : he also plays a more important part than it seems at first when he’ll appear in the tales of the Dream Wanderer (in a chapter yet to come)…

He shares a peculiar look (half man, half owl), and is very greedy! He wouldn’t necessarily attack humans tho : he’s kinda too weak for that (not harmless, just less suited for combat than his peers). Instead, he could even lead you gently to the other bank of the Rubicon (if you have anything of value, of course). If not, his distorted scream is loud enough to alert any guard on each banks from miles away!

It’s still possible to swim your way through somewhere else, but you’d have to leave behind any armor (if you don’t want to sink straight to the bottom of the river) : because there’s no other safe pass on foot anywhere near! That’s why Besticarii pay him so well in food to take them safely to one side from another.

But he’s no fool (and you are if you’d think he’s good hearted) : what he’ll make sure to keep for himself is even if he let you cross the river, you’d quickly get in trouble with any guards from the tower (down the same road). So what you’d pay him for safe passage is just bonus!

But the besticarii from that Dungeon are less seen around these parts lately. Some of them would occasionally brag that they’re having special guests “to dinner”…

[tacitus2313]

Day 26, Remove.

Today, is a wasted day : my first idea for the Remove prompt would have been something about a sumptuous fanart of Shadowheart (from Baldur’s Gate 3) but it appears it’ll never happen. I just had to back down for something way less ambitious : because, apparently, 24 hours are simply not enough in a single day!

So, I’m afraid the best you’ll get for today’s prompt is a clunky (early) victorian dentist doing a tooth removal on a subje… I mean, on a patient! As you can tell, he’s still performing his art the hard way (At least untill 1846 and “the wonders of modern anesthesia”, so to speak) : but if this patient was lucky enough he may have had some alcohol before, to make the pain a bit more bearable i guess…

[tacitus2313]

Day 25, Dangerous.

I wanted to do something real quick with this one : it doesn’t always have to be overly complicated (simpler doesn’t necessarily means cheaper)! So, i tried to go for a nervous, more spontaneous, kinda fierce look (but he now looks like he wants a high five to be honest)! Anyway, (as i did it in a rush), hope it’s still at least a bit accurate : i didn’t draw lions in quite a long time…

It’s something that i (think) i usually get right tho : i draw something close each time I have to draw Tacitus’ Heraldry, but most of all, i used to draw quite a lot of them in my early days (it would go along as a sort of challenge by my childhood classemates around Disney lions back then, like in my teenage days some others would often ask me to draw Goku or something), so…

I’m sure having a pocket lion at home kinda helps!

[tacitus2313]

Day 24, Shallow.

Some years ago, i did a single (crappy) fanart representing my character in a videogame dearest to my heart : which is Final Fantasy 14! It technically worked as a Shallow entry, so i thought i’d redo it : but this time around, i wanted to set the thing straight up in the infamous 1.0 era of that game.

Something that became overlooked (way before “A Realm Reborn” version came out) was, there were many things you could’nt simply do in 1.0…

The game was clearly unfinished at that time (to say the least). But for some reasons, despite its unfinished state (and all the nonsense the game was built upon), i still get nostalgic when thinking about this aborted version : also because i mostly remember it as my very first mmo experience!

Anyway, the most basic things, like jumping, lifting your visor, having a simple mount (at least at the beginning) or simply “swimming” for instance, were not implemented in the game at first. And that last point will kinda make my whole entry for the Shallow prompt : the best you could do to actually get into water, was walking in small ponds and “shallow” rivers. In retrospect,  i always find that detail kinda realistic tho! As swimming in armor in any video game is cheated to me : in the real world, it would be nearly impossible to swim with any kind of armor heavier than the lightest chainmail (you already get a very hard time swimming with only clothes on)…

So, you get it : noone could ever enter in water deeper than his knees in 1.0…

But how can you tell it’s 1.0?! Well, first, the visor of that helmet is always down: there’s no way to lift it up (at all). And the belt armor : it’s still an item you can get in game (called a “Tassette”), but the engine doesn’t bother rendering separate pieces for belt armors anymore (which is still a shame, ‘cause you could then get the most badass looks by simply mixing more pieces of sets!

So, here’s my entry!!

[tacitus2313]

Day 23, Celestial.

I hadn’t much time today, and i got a bit carried away by all the managing of my Society6 shop too, so I was afraid I’d rush today’s prompt. But in fact, I got pretty close to the idea i had basically. So, I’m quite satisfied of the result in the end : i think it turned out really neat!

It’s supposed to represent a Stone Angel (from the lore of my “Chronicles Inked With Blood” webcomic series). As he’s technically an elder, he still lacks a pair of wings (that I simply forgot to draw) : normally, he got two pair of those broken stone wings! But his skin and armor are still made of nearly indestructible minerals, so he’s quite impervious to any kind of damage. Few have managed to kill even only one of these celestial beings (one who actually did being Oriflamme, the Maiden of the Void).

How?! It’s still a mystery : but she got the armor of the one she managed to defeat, as well as her third eye in the process (right after the sight of the face of the angel left without his helmet blinded her)…