Whelp, opened up a can of generative AI art drama on a Discord, we'll see if it gets me booted. Honestly if you're a small #TTRPG shop and you can't afford artists, no art is perfectly acceptable. I don't buy games for their art. It's nice if there is evocative art to go along with it, but it doesn't make or break the game.
Promoting gen AI bullshit is a dealbreaker though, and I don't believe that's an extreme position to take in late-stage #capitalism.
@CatDad I've been working on the art for a game, and there is so much nice public domain art that even someone like me, who can't draw anything beautiful, has a huge amount of stuff to choose from and adapt.
I think D&D fantasy art or sci-fi art might be a bit harder, because so much of the public domain stuff has already appeared in other works, but anything renaissance period till the present still has so much to work with.
@raphaelkaitz@CatDad I have a bizarro post-apocalyptic game and just updated to a new edition. I used PD & free license stock art, using filters and such available for free software. Our flagship platinum bestseller is a super niche artless title [a low prep/solo oracle].
It's not as great as proper commissioned art and art direction, but with some effort searching and processing images I was able to find good pieces to help complement the text.