We do not employ AI in ANY of our art or writing. 

The art on these pages and also at Iaconagraphy is generated using Daz Studio 4.6 and the latest edition of Corel Paint Shop Pro. Occasionally, to speed our workflow on creating layouts for post headers and/or in the creation of some graphics-intensive PDFs, we will also use Canva, but when working there we are very careful not to employ any of their AI-enabled features.

We use the earliest viable edition of Daz Studio precisely so that we can make absolutely certain we are not falling prey to any AI-enabled features. Creating digital art in Daz Studio uses basically the same skill-set used by the artists at Pixar: the primary difference between what they do and what we do is that our art is intended to remain static. As much as is feasible and possible, we create all-original characters, textures, etc., blending these with existing props which are marketed for specifically that purpose: for other artists to use in the creation of their own original art. And let us assure you: those artists got paid! Over the years, we have spent literally thousands of dollars to develop a database of such props for legal use in creating our art. In order to complete a finished piece, all items in a scene must be positioned, posed, lit, and then captured with a “camera” within the program, exactly as if one were setting a physical stage and then photographing it. A render is then generated of the final product. Render times may vary, depending on the complexity of the scene and the type of lighting and camera used, sometimes taking as long as 24 hours or more. From start to finish, some pieces may take as long as days to create! The finished pieces of digital art are essentially “paintings” composed not of ink and pigment, but instead of light, data, and extensive effort.

We pride ourselves on the fact that all writings here and also published via Iaconagraphy are completely human-generated and original. Much of this material has taken its authors years to produce, through careful research and innumerable long nights of literal blood, sweat, and tears. We despise plagiarists and plagiarism in any and all of its forms and maintain a system of constant, careful checks to make absolutely certain that nothing we publish anywhere has ever been published by anyone else anywhere else ever. You will find that we are, in fact, over-diligent in crediting our sources whenever we employ materials, such as quotations, in our research or other writings. 

We deeply encourage those who are determined to “cancel” or otherwise “blacklist” anything and everything that might remotely be AI-generated to actually take the time to educate themselves on what AI actually is and is not, rather than leaping on whatever current “bandwagon” happens to be “riding by”. Leaping to such thoroughly uneducated assumptions hurts real artists and writers, like ourselves, who are out here, working in media which you may not otherwise entirely understand, just trying to spread a little more beauty in this world.