This year this video has generated 7€ of profit, which after takes is 3rd of one day’s lunch for me. The ads are not placed by me they are automatically placed by KZbin for videos that have monetization turned on. I wish I could but currently it is not possible to make videos without the income from those ads. I understand how that might be really frustrating. Personally I pay for yt premium be a I don't have time to watch any ads ever and I use their music service + I often listen to videos or music with my phone locked. I understand your frustration with the amount of ads I just wanted to point out what the situation is like from the creator side of things. Just to make a single video like this is only possible because of thousands of euros I’ve invested in the hardware and software to reach this level. Many of those costs are subscriptions too. I wish yt was a bit more chill with the ads for non premium users but sadly I have absolutely no say in that process at all.

The second part with the colour exercise and free downloads to do it is already here : kzbin.info/www/bejne/roGTkHd-j7qeebssi=Po3aheS8qJiuPLdh

Happy to hear that! I’m so happy to finally be able to share it after working on it since last summer.

All of the brushes in the Best of -set are ones that I use most frequently. Almost always I only use one brush per painting. I choose the tool based on how much character fits the idea and what is the fastest one for the piece I’m working on.

Same company. Ig, threads, fb and WhatsApp all work by selling your information.They are allalso owned by meta. Same goes for every platform that is free. If you are not paying for the product you are the product.

@@angrymikko aww man....are there any platforms to go to post and follow art?

This is the best news I’ve heard all day 🐻

I do feel like the communication with other artists is a bit different. They are more likely to comment and ponder on the technical aspects of artwork. Discussions with general people involved are more likely to go into how they experience or interpret the work. There’s definitely value in both types of discussions and communities.

I believe it's important to understand your learning style, but art classes still require a structured curriculum. Balancing freedom with necessary skills is a challenge for both art students and teachers. When creating concept art classes, I aim to give students the freedom to approach assignments while providing the structure needed to develop skills for their final projects. I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, but I try. Some assignments are, however, so fundamental that they just cannot be skipped. I have one colour swatch exercise that most of my students probably hate, but it's so effective that I don't think I'll ever remove it from the curriculum. At best, I can work on making it more fun. There's always something to learn even when it comes to art teaching.

Could the heavy traffic just be a massive strain on the server they have for all of the users right now? That could lead to the slow loading too.

In every community, communication goes both ways. If you ignore the people giving you attention, they will do the same. But I also understand that sometimes priorities change. If I'm working on a client project under a tight deadline, I tend to go fully offline to get the job done. Some people can multitask ongoing conversations with painting, but for me, it's one or the other. My concentration doesn't have bandwidth for both simultaneously.

“Post list” sounds organised. I’m going to do this as well and use it to streamline my posting process across platforms.

There was a big scandal some years ago when someone was selling prints in a gallery of famous Instagram photographers' posts. He was abusing a loophole in the TOS at the time. The legal jargon is there only to protect Instagram, not the users or their work.

🤷🏻‍♂️🐻

I feel uncomfortable seeing so many brush sets be advertised with just AI images. It makes everyone who puts a lot of effort into creating tools for painting look bad because we are in the same category. I can only hope some people can appreciate the sets that have been tested through actual painting but who knows. If this information war is decided by volume then people like me have no chance to be seen. I can’t paint 30pieces in a day.

@@angrymikko I understand your point. I feel like real work isn't always valued because a lot of people want to make it easy for themselves. That's sad. But I have hope that there are still a lot of people like us who appreciate hard work and choose it. That's why I will always discuss with authors who choose AI Art as a book cover. Nobody of them considers that entire existences depend on painting or design work and that, above all, that is what the money is worth.

@@RosenRotInk no one asked, but here are my 2 cents: I believe Artists will always care for Art. But unfortunately Art is not decided only on the opinion of the Artists. What does make art, Art? The artistry behind it of course, but also the critics, the general public and the buyers. If the focus changes slightly from the artistry, and is being pushed towards something different, like we are currently seeing with the commercial interest there is in AI, shortly after AI works will be art because there will be echonomic pressure to be so, critics will praise towards the economic interests, and the general public and the buyers will want since it will be cheaper and of easier access. Lately I've been demotivated to draw (not that I'm an artist, but it's an hobby i love) just because it's not valued anymore. With my 5 yo niece, I've shown her how to make an animation, and i just did the exercise of drawing a ball bouncing in a pile of sheets of paper. Then I showed her how to do the same animation of the bouncing ball using Krita, frame by frame animation. But shortly after she shared in our whatsapp family group an animation of one of her characters, dancing and bouncing. Again, a 5 yo child was able to do a "more complex" animation than a 45 yo man. I do think those that create, the artists, either using canvas and brushes or using pens and displays, will always value the art that is made by humans. Also a group of people that understand what is behind a piece will respect and praise the artist. But in the end AI will gather a larger group of supporters, because in the end with AI all can be their own artists, in the end it may not be a good piece of art, but it may be just good enough. As for me, I can only say I will continue to look for artists to follow online, like Mikko. The only chance we have to stop AI is to boycot AI, and spread the word. Not focusing only on the creation of drawings, but AI is also attacking on writing, music, video, only the people can make this stop. Boycot the AI generating apps at all costs, call for awereness to your friends and family. I fear we won't stop it but maybe we can slow AI. Sorry for my rant, got lost in it somehow!!!

I guess for most people, Cara would be more like a portfolio-type resource in addition to the other online content and not a replacement for stuff like IG. Please correct me if I am wrong; this is just my assumption of what most are doing.

This is actually a misconception. Contrary to popular belief, artists also consume art! In fact, when I took commissions, most of my clients were other artists and creatives! Also, there are art enthusiasts and art industry professionals on Cara as well. So its a great place even if you just want to see great human made art. Just wanted to dispel the notion that one needs to "pander to the masses" in order to get commissions, because in my experience and the experience of many other artists, its not true.

It's my mistake that I wasn't clearer on this, but for me, it's specifically companies that buy my concept art services. I can only talk on my own behalf, but at least here, it is not possible to do commissions for individuals as a job. The cost of a painting would simply be too high. In the last ten years, I’ve done a commission for an individual client only once, and even then, it was under 800€, meaning that I made it a loss for myself. Basically if all my commissions would be priced like that I would simply run out of money to both live and keep this channel running. Commissions are a very different beast as a side hustle. 800€ would be good money on top of a normal salary and I don’t want to diminish that in any way. I have never received a commission through one of the artist-only communities over the years. All of my work has come through just people bumping into my art or other companies referring work to me because I’ve worked with them in the past. Everyone’s target audience is different as is the cost of living where you are so this is not intended as general advice but just my own perspective based on my work history.

@@kurai_sen7065 Oh, it kind makes sense to some point, thanks!

@@angrymikko Thanks, at the end of day, "will it make a living" is a problem we all should think about. I think "portfolio-type" you said already make sense to me, so thanks again!

Yes I forgot Happy Pride to everyone from me as well. I should do something 🏳️‍🌈themed while I still can. Usually always lose a bunch of subscribers when I do it so I definitely want to keep doing that tradition 😌🐻

As low as our expectations for Meta were somehow they still manage to limbo under that bar. They also are bringing unskippable video ads to the feed.

I’m all ears for suggestions, too. Artstation is out because the staff removed tons of posts about Russia attacking Ukraine. Their investors and offices are in Russia. So they are deep in Putin’s pocket. It just seems like social media platforms have reached the level of terrible now that they are building an opportunity for someone to make a system that is just less evil and respects their users a tiny bit. The bar is getting really low for an alternative option to look enticing to general public. And who knows Cara might make it through this. I'm certainly rooting for them at this point 🐻

Sometimes I forget to post my art on all the places I’m on right now 😅 is Mastodon still a thing?

@@angrymikko To me at least it is. Just shared your video there and it is the only social network where I get regular positive/likeable/humane interactions. Do you have an account? I'd Love to follow you there.

and lovely painting as always!

Thanks : ) 🐯

What a nuanced assessment of the current state of affairs. 🙄

Yeah, artists have always had other artists as their own inspirations, but there’s a big difference between inspiration and theft. AI is literally taking the images themselves without people’s consent in order to operate. It’s essentially stealing people’s work to use as fuel. In other cases stealing or using images without permission is considered theft but in this case it’s not? Plainly, AI is an outlet for real people to be easily exploited and disrespected in favor of the novelty of using a robot. In Instagram’s case non-artist users should be afraid of this too, it’s invasive and disturbing that there’s personal photos of people’s families out there waiting to be used for this without their consent. AI is being used as a means to blatantly deny basic rights of privacy and ownership here, all whilst threatening to take jobs away from real people who need money to live. That’s why we’re upset.

@@sprigtwig what’s the difference between AI using someone’s photo without permission and an artist studying someone’s else’s photo posted on instagram without permission? I’m not saying I’m right just trying to understand.

​@@kevindouglas8879 you won't get an answer because they know deep down their logic and reasoning doesn't make sense. It's like they just found out about the internet for the first time. Artists have been inspired by others for decades but when a machine does it suddenly it's unethical. If people are that afraid of their life and privacy perhaps stay offline. Cara was doomed to fail from the start but it was hilarious watching artists rally as if defeating some big foe. Imagine if they spent that much time in effort into improving their artwork. Most artist I follow don't get involve in AI drama instead they just produce art. It's been real fun the last few days just cleaning up my subscriptions.

They are not a non-profit organization, but they do have a donation page on Ko-Fi. Just 7k+ donors probably are not enough to keep up with these server costs. I imagine one option for them could be to sell the ownership via shares, but that would also give up control of the platform's direction.

@@angrymikko They could sell non voting shares to keep it private. Let’s hope they can figure something out. I doubt Cara was expecting this.

Yeah, Instagram always sucked. And then they got rid “Recents” for some reason and it became worse. And now this shit? Instagram can fuck off

Yes!!!! Instagram always sucked.

I always thought the aspect ratio was a weird and totally random limitation.

@@angrymikko I think they were trying to keep instagram feed consistent, like a whole coherent thing, but they only led to this discomfort and people wanting to abandon the app

Also it shows nothing to unregistered users so it cripples views greatly. Artists get locked in a secret society of 100k other active artists. And they don't want to see other artists, they want to get views. Plus I loathe the new "drooling tongue" format. I like DA's web page format. 1=1. Not "keep scrolling to see infinity". Can't find anything like that. No pages, no numbers, nothing. Awful mobile format. I see no reason why can't mobile users get mobile interface and sane PC users get the sane interface. Mobile is NOT for serious viewing. It's for not getting bored when shitting in McD's toilet. And that's not the best audience. What artist wants to amuse a crowd who don't even care about the details, the technique, the composition, just wanna see the 100x100 thumbnail, nod and move on? Why grow skill then? But... it seems no one else cares. For descriptions, for full view, for separate pages. I see how pages could be improved, but instead they degraded them, made this "drool". Why do other people find it convenient?! Sigh... Venting, sorry.

At least Tumblr you can turn it off lol

The now “amended” terms of service doesn't really outright rule out this possibility. Also they have the right to access your content now. All of my my work is under NDAs. I can not even imagine explaining the tos change to a client.

What if you try reposting the comment but edit the link so that youtube doesn't recognize it (like add some spaces or special characters)? Might be youtube's tendency to block links to other domains. Or just with a description of where we can find the article.

I have checked the “held for review” section and I couldn't find anything by @electrotone2507 there. Your username with numbers in it might also trigger the sensors because a ton of bots have random number combinations in them because they have millions of accounts.

I also keep most of the links in the held for review because many of them are scams or malware links. That's why I don't greenlight them even if I see them. This is to protect people in my comments section. To protect my own devices, I don’t click on those links either. It's nothing personal to the people whose comments are caught up in the held for review section. I don't have a problem with people sharing their art gallery handles here, that can easily be done without functional links too. Just wanted to be as transparent about this as possible.

@@angrymikko Thanks for your replies and time, Mikko. Good call on my username. For some reason KZbin automatically changed it a while ago, when there was an update to KZbin Studio. I've now changed it back to my preference. You can search for the problems regarding comments on KZbin being 'disappeared' even before they are sent to each creator for review, it is not exactly an isolated problem. It is very doubtful that it is anything you have - or have not - been doing, which makes comments go away. It has been a very widespread problem for some time now on all of KZbin. As for my original comment: The EU Commission is apparently looking into the Meta/Instagram art theft fiasco, in particular the part about it being opt out. Maybe. Perhaps. If Meta permits you to opt out... Also, public service news organizations in at least Norway, NRK, and here in Denmark, TV2, have been covering the problem. Here in Denmark TV2 ran a public poll (however unreliable those are...) showing that 92% (!) of more than 5000 submitted votes disagree with Meta's new policy.

Engage and be active in the community! Comment, share, repost, follow folk that make art you like really.