ZaraLT
Welp
As you may or may not have noticed, I've updated all of my art to direct you to where you can find me, on other platforms. I've been on this site for 17 years, and it feels pretty awful to see it end this way. I'm a lot older now. In this time I've become a 2D Rigging Artist in the animation industry. I've also experienced enough to know when people are being underhanded and selfish.
While DeviantArt has changed their AI policy from needing to opt out by default now, my trust just can't be repaired. A close friend of mine signed me up here, back when I was in high school. DeviantArt was the first place I ever posted my art online. My friend was the one to do so because of how self-conscious I was and, more relevantly, scared I was of potentially having my art stolen by someone. I had this happen to me as a kid and, honestly, that experience cut really deep.
And here we are.
I don't care if what the AI is doing is more complex than simply mashing things together, the people making these generators are not getting the consent of artists, and that's still theft and always will be, in my eyes. My art is incredibly personal to me, as I know it is to a lot of other artists, and it hurts to see something so personal being treated like free candy to be fed into a soulless machine.
Now I could go on and on about how much I dislike the AI art process and how damaging the mentality around the whole thing is to artists and what they do, but I'm mainly focused on the ethics here. Artists deserve to have rights to how their art is being used. The fact that a platform FOR artists misstepped in such a drastic way tells me everything I need to make this decision.
So, with that said, here are just a few places where you can find me:
Twitter (as it slowly burns)
Cohost (in case Twitter burns)
Thank you to each and every one of you who ever favourited one of my drawings, commented something sweet or followed me for whatever amount of time. You'll never understand how much every one of those things means to me; it really does. Take care of yourselves, and try and show some kindness and support (both for yourself and others) in these neverendingly hard times we seem to be in.
All the very best,
ZaraLT <3
Update!
I wanted to let you know where I disappeared to. Over the past few months, I've been working full time and doing freelance after hours, which has given me very limited time for personal artwork in general. I finished this freelance work last week and then proceeded to get pretty sick.
So, yeah, not much fun!
I felt I owed all my followers an explanation. I hope to communicate what is happening in my life better next time.
Thank you all so much for being patient. <3
Manga Studio is $25!!
An Update
As some of you may have noticed, Static Skies has not had a proper update in 3 weeks. I have been trying to finish pages during this time period but they have been coming out less than lackluster. I wanted to write this up to let you all know because I don't want to put out pages that aren't up to standard, since I care about this project immensely. Art block is not something I usually deal with so this experience has been especially frustrating.
I will be attempting to put out a page today and try and make up for my current lack of progress in the future with multiple page updates, but I can't make any promises at this time, unfortunately.
Thank you to all my readers for being so patient with me. Here's hoping updates get back to their normal schedule soon!
SPX
Also I've been packing like a crazy lady which is why the latest Static Skies pages were a bit delayed today. But I hope you enjoy them.
Have a great weekend folks!