Last year, I built The Silent Carnival using 90% kitbashed assets. I didn’t model anything from scratch, because I already had the vision:
The Silent Carnival: A 3D art project captures life’s stages within a Gothic graveyard. A Ferris wheel echoes the innocence of childhood, while old houses symbolize adulthood’s challenges and resilience…. A statue stands for the fragile beauty of life, and tombstones shrouded in mist represent death. Together, these elements reflect the cyclical nature of existence, wrapped in an eerie, haunting atmosphere.
I didn’t need to model anything because the vision was already complete. Kitbashing let me build faster, yes but more importantly, it let me build with feeling. Every object was chosen, not generated. Every placement was a memory, not a prompt. Of course, I respected the source: all assets were used under proper licenses commercial, CC0, or royalty-free. Because even in ritual, there’s responsibility.
Now AI does this in seconds. But are we losing the ritual in the process?
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You know, I just don’t use AI or ever expect to because I’m a painter as well
and really enjoy creating. I do use premade objects from time to time but
it’s a reward to create something myself and helps me to learn new things.
I also played guitar professionally for 25yrs. and that’s another way of creating as I wrote a lot of our music…So to me it’s all about being responsible for my own work 
P.S. Great Work!!!
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Let’s say AI does have a net positive impact on society and indeed creates utopia, true artists will still want to create even when/if they don’t have to do so for money. Though, even in such a scenario, I do feel that the number of true artists will greatly reduce because we are unlikely to create a utopia that is truly democratic, if not one that is completely authoritarian.
Basically, our creators may just be highly skilled with zero actual creativity.
That said: AI’s beginning and/or adoption has been unethical, so I won’t hold my breath for it being a net positive unless it is redone; and that won’t happen.
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Thank you so much for sharing that and for the kind words, I totally respect your commitment to crafting things by hand and learning through the process. That deep relationship with creation is something I relate to as well, even if we use different tools. For me, moving into 3D wasn’t about chasing technical perfection… it was about finding a new way to express ideas rooted in my experience, especially in a place like Damascus, where every texture tells a story.
At the end of the day, it’s all art it’s all human and I appreciate you taking the time to connect through it 
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And even if AI reaches its golden age creating flawless simulations, perfect compositions, and efficient outputs… there will always be something it can’t synthesize: the original ignition. The concept, born not from logic or data, but from a deeply humanpain, love, displacement, rebellion. That untraceable spark behind a piece of art that makes you pause… not because it’s technically sound, but because it feels inevitable. AI can refine but it can’t truly originate why
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Yes, AI can create outstanding art no doubt. And thank God for that. It can push human creativity to uncharted realms, offer new tools, expand what’s possible. But it still can’t generate why we feel compelled to make art in the first place. It enhances, echoes, even inspires but it doesn’t dream.
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It’s the Royal We that gets me.
I have only accepted kitbashing for myself recently. I so see the worth after my internal struggle.
However, it has taken a while. I think the new generation doesn’t have the older generation saying, “You gotta be true to the art!”
Much more realistic, today, “It’s all fake, make it look good. If it looks right it is.”
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Totally feel that. Took me time too, kitbashing felt like cheating at first. But now I see it’s not about the tool, it’s about staying true to the intent.
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I featured you on BlenderNation, have a great weekend!