One key advantage of Wolfery over traditional text-based roleplaying is its image support, but many areas (and even characters) lack illustrations. For some this may be a conscious choice, but I suspect in most cases the issue is not having a suitable picture/photo to hand.
I propose a few ideas for this, perhaps to be offered in the image picker:
Offer links and samples to the galleries of community members open to commissions and/or offering adopts (or to a forum category dedicated to this purpose)
Search on Wikimedia Commons and DeviantArt for related, freely-licensed pictures (perhaps even adding them directly along with appropriate credit in the description)
Links to free AI creation tools such as ChatGPT, Perchance, Reve, Recraft and Bing, or the option to generate an image directly from the description (a premium feature?)
I suggest these options because I have seen them all used and have used all three myself in character and room builds ā primarily the first two, but I know some prefer the latter.
Any of these ideas could be offered individually, but all have their merits and adherents and I think offering them all might best encourage fans of one method to consider alternatives.
In particular, though, offering concrete options for commissions might result in a sale, which may help promote the community elsewhere (āMade for Cryptic Cacomistle on Wolfery!ā).
Iāve had the challenges of wanting commissions for my characters, and then seeing itāll be 2-3 months before I even get it. For seasonal clothing, new ideas, etc., itās been difficult to not roll with AI.
Iād love to see a commission type of community, but I know it takes a ton of time and effort. For rooms, maybe that would be a fun thing. I havenāt had much luck with AI understanding the finer details about a complex room. Would anyone be interested in making that kind of art, though?
I would really we rather not build some kind of integration of GenerativeAI into wolfery if we cannot help it. I already use the platform in spite of AI, not because of it. I really donāt think that encouraging AI use on the platform as like, a matter of course is really great when weāre a community of writers and artists whose work has been poached by these machines. Coupled with their costs that theyāll be racking up before long with API calls being charged, Iād rather we build a platform thatās building resiliency for post-AI rather than trying to incorporate it into the platform.
Promoting commissions for artists on/off platform who do good work (Iāve a few I can happily point folk toward) is a great idea, and one Iām 100% behind.
I think the recommendation for wikimedia commons is good. Unsplash, pexels, and a few other sites are also great for like, getting room pictures and whatnot. As for characters, I think that using commissioned art is great, using generated art is fine (not great but I canāt police everything i donāt like), but that we should build a community that welcomes folk with amateur art or imagebashing or using like, a picture of a bird to represent a bird character.
Thatās where the description and about and writing comes in. You get to really flesh out a character with words, and bring them to life through those, not just focusing on the images that someone has on their profile.
I do think that itād be potentially worthwhile to run like, ooc/ic writing workshops and informal group draws and whatnot to help build some of those skills in our players. Art of all sorts is amazing, and Iām much more charmed by a handdrawn picture showing someone put the effort in rather than something generated. Iād love to at least organize some writing workshops from time to time for folk who are interested. Iām not a great artist myself, and so I use what I can with words.
Tl;dr: Iād rather we build a community thatās creativity-first, one that encourages folk to be amateurs and make mistakes and learn from them. I think that GenAI is making a āpath of least resistanceā that lets us not hone those skills. I think that we have an opportunity here to be a place that grows skills in storytelling, worldbuilding, and character development. Iām hopeful for that future.
I strongly agree that we should not integrate AI into Wolfery for all the reasons Zarrow listed.
Offering links to commissions and free-licensed media is an idea Iām fully in support of and adding those resources to a readily accessible list for users would only be helpful.
Another resource to add to the list would be Hero Forge, Iāve seen at least two characters making excellent use of a virtual miniature to create profile pictures.
Thirded on this one. Thereās a few folks around who have handmade art of varying levels of practice, and I think each of those are incredibly cool! I adore and appreciate the thought that goes into 'em, it brings a real sense of character. Even just a nicely written description works wonders for me.
For what itās worth, in my limited experience artists are often happy to grant permission in advance for reuse of their fan work on Wolfery where it does not constitue someoneās fursona, even if it is not CC-licensed or public domain in general. This can be useful if you stumble across the perfect image of āspecies X doing Yā which is usually a lot harder than just X. (Use of a tip jar can be a nice āthank youā in return, as well as credit of course in the description - small text linking to their gallery, the work and any license often fits in one line.)
Another option is to find a good image and write the description to it, which is the approach I took with most of the school (the pool of āCC-licensed X and Yā being quite limited in such cases).
That was not me saying that it is impossible to reach out to an artist. That was me saying that Iād love to see more people taking a stab at it themselves rather than going other places, if that was not clear.
