I wanted to have something on site just to entertain you all while I was “rebooting” myself (not the comic), but I decided that I will only use AI for limited reference as originally planned. It’s not worth antagonizing a segment of the audience who are adamantly against it. But here is one last piece I in the generator that I thought came out cute. Thanks for indulging me for a short while

Say farewell to “AI Ship”. It was fun for like, a minute

~Mace

Just more boot goofin’ with AI and seeing what the model scraps together

~Mace

I forgot to upload one for Monday, so here’s your double-shot of extra AI goodness

~Mace

Here’s a little something extra from the AI vault to get you through the weekend. We’ll resume posting on Monday. Hopefully, I will have some of the financials sorted out by then. *sigh*

Remember: Ship loves you all

~Mace

I don’t have time or the money at the moment to produce more comics, but to assure you that I do indeed care and want to give you stuff to look at, here’s some AI scrapping, also known as “AI Art”.

The Disclaimer:

I’m very Picky about this stuff as I am staunchly against AI as a “human replacement”, so I wanted to clarify that up front. About a year ago, I discovered PixAI, which uses a modified Stable Diffusion trained using models they purchased from actual artists (as far as I know. It would be a bad look if they lied on their website, but, for example, I could NOT get the prompt to directly sample art on this website or even have a CLUE what “webcomic ‘Ship in a Bottle’ even means, so there’s that. Nor could I detect pulling specific art off of the Web, so it seems they’re on the up-and-up unlike Adobe, for example ;p). Normally, I use this platform to generate “inspiration” pieces: basically references that help me solidify an idea I have and then I draw actual pictures (often on-stream) eyeballing the reference AI.

Anyway, what we have here is an unlimited series of images (hopefully daily, if I can remember) where I prompted the generator using very specific information to try and get pictures that resemble your favorite porny genie. These pictures will go along with progress updates and other useful information in the blog. I’m a very fast writer, so these are just some quick-and-dirty posts to keep everyone appraised as to the current situation and give you some fap– er, nice pictures to look at. Obviously, if the AI butchers the image or gives her 46 fingers, I will reject it. And they will always be tagged as AI and they always come from the same source. Obviously, if you’d like more ORIGINAL works involving the actual comics and such, if we can keep nudging the Patreon into the $600-1200 range, it will ease some burden and allow me to take some time off and rehire our old friends and do the necessary finishes.

But, for now, I hope you enjoy these cute pictures. I think the generator managed a surprisingly nice likeness ^_^

~Mace

so, I could definitely use everyone’s help in dropping by here and bringing up the site’s visibility in the hopes that folks will toddle over to our Patreon and get an advance look at new comics! Our “Lore Comic” (“Pink Panties Paradise”) is a fictional account of the behind-the-scenes antics of my various avatars on “Up Late with Mace (Redux)” over on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/TheMacePaladino) as well as a more in-depth look at the characters I “play” on the stream and use for memes and other funny “skits” on TikTok.

I originally envisioned this as an opportunity to bring folks to our Patreon and trickle some of that revenue into restarting our comics “Ship in a Bottle”, “Peppermint Saga”, “BGR”, “KND”, and “Frilly Pink”, all of which have prospective artists lined up to work with me on their continuation. Oshigan is drawing PPP with me on inks, but I also intend to have him come back to KND. Then we have “Butter” (final name pending) for “Ship in a Bottle”, BlackWalker80 for “Peppermint Saga” (and “The Lavenders” animation project), MasterKrakken for “Frilly Pink”, and an assortment of guest artists and friends for more BGR antics.

All-in-all, the 2024 schedule is looking good, and I am largely putting my animation projects in slowmode until we can get all these things running, slot some commissions, and stream on-time. A tall order, to be sure. But with attainable goals, we substantially increase the chance of winning this thing.

~Mace

~Mace

https://www.twitch.tv/TheMacePaladino

There will be a tie-in comic called “Pink Panties Paradise” tied to that which will be a Patreon early access item which will be put on the site later. Just trying to get some dynamic content that will allow me to resume this stuff. I wish I had time to do it all myself, but with work and bills… I sadly don’t see that happening. :/

~Mace

Did that on our new livestream on Twitch. I can’t do all of our bits on Twitch, but I will definitely produce some Patreon Exclusives to try and juice that up a bit. As I mentioned last time we spoke (which is almost a year ago…), I need a steady revenue stream NOT my job in order to break off and produce comics, which I’d obviously prefer. So there’s a couple ways we can do that!

!) Join the Patreon! (Links in the Sidebar Graphic ^_^)

2) Help me make Affiliate and beyond on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/TheMacePaladino

The new channel is home to Up Late with Mace Redux where we will be doing all kinds of crazy, kooky stuff. Kawaii games, crossdressing, VTube Crossplay, LGBTQIA+ friendly streams, interviews with sexworkers and NSFW streamers, and more! And we’ll be pushing the content straight to the edge, folks. But, we do still have to contend with Twitch’s TOS, so please help us get where we need to be, and if we’re all lucky, I can start doing a stream or two on Picarto.tv again so I can do all the porny commissions and pages you’ve come to love and expect. I will also be most likely returning as lead artist on some projects, so be sure to like and follow the channel so you can get additional updates. ^3^

~Mace

It’s become abundantly clear to me that I need more “bridging” in the story before I launch the “Final” chapter of “Season 1” of “Ship in a Bottle”. And big changes are on the way! First, I’d like to welcome our new penciler, Krius-ol! I found him through Midnight’s “Danger Zone One” comic (Danger Zone One Webcomic) as I have a couple others, and I’m feeling pretty good about where this is going to go. I did inks and colors (with some minor corrections), and I’ll be sharing the Clara piece without all the distractions from the background on Patreon. But I felt it fitting (given the nature of the story I have planned) to include a little bit of art from all of the artists who made this version of “Ship in a Bottle” work as well as foreshadow some things that may not yet be obvious to all. but they shall be revealed in good time.

I also realize it’s been a good long while since this updated. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: without support on Patreon, our comics are dead in the water. I’m working on what I can when I am able, but it’s not a lot. If we can get it to $1000/month, I may be able to certify updates and take some time to work up some bonuses and other materials to make it worthwhile. Obviously, we don’t want to stop there, but it’s a “goal”. and I do not expect any one person to carry the load. That defeats the nature of patronage on Patreon, which is meant to be about community. so, spread the word: the finest chapters of this series and Peppermint Saga have yet to be written, and we need your help to get there. But, I also want to thank our existing Patrons. Without you, we wouldn’t have gotten here at all.

Special thanks to UncolaMan for saving the day and helping me acquire my new XP-Pen Tablet Monitor. I’m hoping to be able to make more pieces like this in the future.

~Mace