In the context of AI, I primarily use open-source software and open-weight models to create my art. Outside of AI, I'm a 3D artist so Blender, Substance and Krita mostly.

- Illustrious XL (SDXL-based) models, mostly waiNSFWIllustrious 14.0 right now (note: all the best models are made with porn in mind, thus the name. But you can just add tags like "sfw" to the positive prompt or "nsfw" to the negative prompt if you want something safe for work.)

- I also use custom finetuned models (called LoRAs, small models that can patch the base model after learning a new concept) for my characters, trained on manual art.

- NovelAI (paid) has a new Character Reference feature that I have used to create pictures of my characters in different styles and scenarios which I then use to retrain the main LoRA with more detail. It's a good way to make a LoRA of a character who doesn't have much existing art yet.

- Krita is what I use for drawing and editing art. It's cross-platform but after I moved to Linux it's just what I got stuck with instead of CSP.

- Blender is what I use for 3D modeling and rendering. I'm primarily a 3D artist but the point of this site is to showcase AI art, so it won't be referenced much here. Some of my LoRAs were trained primarily on lowpoly renders (an example render here) of my characters.

This section is only here because given the current state of the internet and culture it's going to come up. Having studied how AI/machine learning works for nearly a decade, I realize it's just a morally neutral tool. Anyone can use it for either ethical or unethical reasons. Most (legitimate) issues I hear about AI are issues with capitalism and corporations, not specifically AI.

Q: But AI uses a fuckton of electricity and water! The water is sent directly the Water Destruction Vat

A: I'm aware of Loud People claiming AI uses a fuckton of electricity and water, but these days I can run this stuff and generate a high res image in 6 seconds on my gaming computer. I'm sure companies like Google and Microsoft don't give a shit about their electricity and water usage for ethical reasons, but for anyone it's in our best interests to make this as cheap (and therefore efficient) as possible -- and that works. What used to take minutes years ago now takes a small fraction of the time on the same hardware.
If you're worried about the electrical usage of datacenters, I understand, but you need to consider that nearly the entire internet operates out of these things. If the power requirements to run AI are too much and you want them to end, then at least have the courtesy to stop using Youtube and Twitch streams too, as they're a hell of a lot worse.

Q: I didn't ask to use AI! I hate corporations! YOU! are corporation!

A: I hate corpos too, but luckily, AI is not a corporate-controlled concept, as much as they may want it to be, and there are plenty open-source tools and models available for us to use without paying corporations.
You don't personally have a need or use case for AI? Great! But leave me alone and direct your ire at the corporations who are responsible for pushing it in all these stupid ways.

Q: But Google Search gives bad and dangerous answers!

A: Yeah, Google's web search use of AI is a fucking joke, I agree. A bigger issue is that the results it's summarizing come primarily from ads and sites gaming the SEO nonsense, which is a good reason alone to leave Google and go to any other smaller search engine. I use Kagi Search which costs money after a certain amount of use, but there are others which are free. Pretty much all of them are better.

Q: But Grok and xAI and etc. rightwing shits!

A: Leftists should be using AI (especially LLM's, a very useful tool for various things) for good rather than willingly handing it over to the rightwing lunatics. The fact that we've been so unwilling to learn about it, while the rightwing feels fine acting without restraint is, as Alex Avila put it in his video How Corporations Hijacked Anti-AI Backlash, a generational blunder.

Q: But copyright! My intellectual property!

A: Copyright and pattents are concepts that we should oppose in all instances -- a lot of the internet already had this figured out in recent decades -- and seeing people try to fuck themselves over by donating to lobbyists to expand IP law is disgusting. Seriously you sound like NFT enthusiasts. There are plenty of arguments for how AI doesn't violate IP law, and isn't The Plagiarism Machine, etc. but I won't discuss them here because, more importantly: kindly go fuck yourselves if ownership and profiting off of ideas is all you care about.

I recommend visiting the Discord, website or tumblr of Are We Art Yet?, a coalition of artists working to bridge the divide between traditional, digital, and AI creators.

It's a mostly far-left group and I love this community, I can't recommend it enough.

You can contact me via email at unhandled-type-error@protonmail.com, though I don't often reply to email. Introverted, and all that.