If you ignore for a moment that generative image AI will most likely utterly decimate the digital arts industry, it's kind of refreshing to see artistic expressions without the usual Tumblr degeneracy. It only took a blanket ban on explicit sexual content to accomplish this.
I suppose it'll crop up again when the usual suspects(Tumblr degenerates) manage to circumvent the ban on sexual content, but by then AI image generators may be good enough to create 'deep fakes/undress simulacra', removing the demand for illustrated pornographic content altogether.
Another factor of influence is that a new and different demographic is tinkering with artistic expression (through AI.)
I've used some of the AI generation to create concept art to help flesh out ideas that I've been having a hard time visualizing. Then I draw the actual subject myself using the generation as a reference. It's helped a lot
Example?
Sorry for the delay. Was out of the house for Christmas.
Here's an example. On the left are my original, all from my head designs for my two main characters, in the middle are the best AI prompts I could generate for them, and on the right are my new designs taking some cues from how the AI interpreted my descriptions of them.
Looks good.
From what I've seen, these image generators can also directly produce pixel art, though. You'll have steep competition from them, but it's still fun to tinker around with.