couple of details shots:

Anyway... makes me really grateful for commissioners who aren't artists themselves. I've never felt anything but immense respect and kindness from the fandom, and even a decade later with the microwaved version now available ya'll still are largely choosing to support artists <3

Not to mention its extremely fun and gratifying to create something beautiful with nothing but your own brain and the skills you've practiced for decades. Even if its hard!

But that's the thing, somebody can't just generate what I'm doing, because I'm crafting something with care. It's the knowledge and skill that artists have built that makes what we do impressive and worthwhile.

I HAVE gotten discouraged while working and wondering why I put in the time and effort when somebody could just generate what I'm doing. Really sucks to feel like the purpose and direction and passion of my entire life suddenly became worthless

I kind of thought this went without saying but I keep seeing ding dongs who are tracing AI or pretending they drew it but just generating it etc. So there :T