AI Art

[Pryde]

Midjourney sure would've been super useful fifteen years ago when this place was more active and we were all pushing the limits of copyright law.

[Archangel]

I've tried a few others because I didn't want to pay for Midjourney, but as far as I can tell, it really is the best at this.

Still pushing the limits of copyright law, of course.

[Mir]

I used another AI tool to create the album artwork for the two albums I've released.

[Pryde]

I've tried a few others because I didn't want to pay for Midjourney, but as far as I can tell, it really is the best at this.

Still pushing the limits of copyright law, of course.

Well, from how I understand it it's pretty murky. Individual pieces are protected by copyright, not an artist's style. So like the artwork they showed it so it would know what looks good probably, iono... I'd have to watch that Legal Eagle video again. >.>

[Pryde]

I'm really impressed, though, cause I didn't have to show it what a lightsaber looked like to get it to do a lightsaber.

[Halomek]

Although it has some issues and restrictions, I've really been liking the Bing Image Creator: https://www.bing.com/images/create/

Once you get the hang of how it interprets keywords, it's pretty good at creating what you want - although it may take several attempts until you find that perfect image. Best of all, it's completely free to use if you have an MSN account. Some of my favorite key phrases to use are "anime style" or "comic style" which helps to keep the generated images from looking too real.

My personal bucket list is to now replace any art I've borrowed that's not from official sources with AI generated versions that are much truer to the images in my head. Why wasn't this a thing back in the golden age of Exodus?

Also, as a bonus, I'm becoming reacquainted with a lot of our old threads. Did you know that this board has seen a lot of amazing writers on it?

I'm currently in the process of sprucing up Kalja's wiki article and I just ended up re-reading all of To Kill a Goddess and Lost But Found. My initial intention was just to mine them for reference material, but I got sucked back into the stories despite myself.

---

Anyway, some of my better AI works so far. A few I've had to touch up or adjust with Photoshop, but by and large it's all AI generated:









For a challenge, it can even make a pretty decent Barabel, which was not something I thought I'd get.

[Pryde]

I miss those old stories. Tempted to start up another thread again if an idea pops into my head. Keep this place chugging along.

[Halomek]

You know, another thread I ended up reading again that I think died too soon was Young Jedi, which dealt with the next generation of the Legends timeline. If one were to soft reboot the Legends universe, that seems like a good way to go about it considering how quiet things have become.

And I might be a bit wistful that I never got to do more with Kalja Falanis Leidias or her brother...

[Pryde]

Never even made it off the first page. I could do that one again, flesh out Cadence some more. Could use a palette cleanser, got a bit stuck in my current writing and could use a break from it for a bit. ><

[Pryde]

Although it has some issues and restrictions, I've really been liking the Bing Image Creator: https://www.bing.com/images/create/

Oh wow, Bing doesn't have any problem with depicting a blaster. Midjourney's still trying to figure out what a gun looks like. >.>

[Pryde]

Features I wish it had, though;



With Midjourney I could highlight the American flag and have it change that. It is much easier to get consistent looking characters, though.

Edit:

Absolutely adore this image, then I saw the extra finger on her right hand.



... Omg, the other hand is worse...

[Halomek]

Yeah, it has the usual AI issue with finer details like fingers and hands. Sometimes it comes out well and sometimes you get mutants. That's generally most of my Photoshop edits - that - or some selective cropping if I can get away with it. Bing also needs a negative prompt option to keep things out of the picture.

Still, I infinitely prefer it to using someone else's art wholesale and slapping a fairuse tag on it. And, when it works, it really works.

It's so much better going from this...



...to this!



It still might not be the final image I settle on for Kalja. I like to hold on to the keyword prompts I use once I get a picture I like. Makes it easier to recreate that character again for another attempt or for a variation.

The prompts I'm using that created this particular image of Kalja are: Star Wars human female Jedi, ornate white robes with embroidery, light brown vestments, wind-blown hair, grassy plains background, blonde hair braided, sunny sky, sash around robes, boulder, flowers, green eyes, determined expression, temple in background, mountain background, waterfall background, wedding ring on ring finger, fingerless gloves, purple lightsaber, hand outstretched, giant floating rocks being thrown in the air towards the camera, anime style

Some times it all works and sometimes it misses things. There's no temple in this image, for instance.

[Pryde]

Huh, that's not like my prompt at all;

Cadence Sinclair: in the style of star wars, photorealism, a 14 year old girl with long blue and black hair and blue eyes dressed casually wielding a blue lightsaber on coruscant

Cadence Sinclair: star wars photorealism, a full body shot of a 14 year old girl with long blue and black hair and blue eyes dressed casually wielding a blue lightsaber down on one knee striking a combat pose on an Imperial star destroyer while Imperial stormtroopers from the Empire surround her and shoot at her

Really encapsulated that punk teenager look I was going for.





Supposedly, if you put the character's name in the prompt you get more consistent pictures. I mean, I think it works, but don't quote me on that. As an added precaution, though, I've been saving all the images I like into different collections named after the character they're for. These last two were among the best.

[Pryde]

I really really had to specify Imperial and Empire over and over again cause it kept giving me stupid First Order stormtroopers. ><

[Pryde]

Supposedly, if you put the character's name in the prompt you get more consistent pictures...

I don't know if it's perfect, but it's pretty close.

[Halomek]

I'll have to try some longer descriptions and see what I get. The name thing too.

I save a lot of variations until I find the image I want to use. Usually they're almost what I want, but there's just a detail or two off. For example, when trying to generate a group image of young Faye, Kalja, and Danolie together to represent the story of Lost But Found, I got this:



It was almost perfect! I actually like it better than the image I ended up going with, but the problem is Kalja looks much too young in this. They're all supposed to be around the same age in that story.

For the record, here's the image I did go with. It's still pretty good, but I don't know...



(Pardon the disparity in image sizes. I guess Discord does things bigger).

[Pryde]

That's a lot of hands, so many opportunities for something to go wrong.

[Pryde]

I'll have to try some longer descriptions and see what I get. The name thing too.

Midjourney works better with longer sentences than a bunch of short prompts separated by commas. I just kinda figured Bing would be the same way, didn't really put much thought into it.

[Halomek]

TBH, I'm still mining the finer points of how Bing works, so your method might work better.

[Pryde]

I kinda really liked this one, but wrong stormtroopers. Aaand it looks like they're fighting with each other rather than against. Love the outfit, though. My reenvisioned Cadence would be the type to drive her mother crazy by wearing anything but the Jedi robes. Had so much more practice improving my writing in the last year and a half than I had the whole time I was writing here. Turns out you learn a lot when you have a published author rip your work to shreds. Wish I could go back in time with what I know now and rewrite everything.



I have no idea what that TIE thing is supposed to be.

[Halomek]

I have no idea what that TIE thing is supposed to be.

Introducing the TIE POS...

Also, what the what!? What did I miss? What's all this about a published author checking out your work?

[Halomek]

It also wouldn't be too far off to have Imperial troops fighting with Cadence. Keep in mind that Kalja forged an agreement with the Empire to set up her temple on Tython.

Good relations with the Imperials, she has.

[Pryde]

A friend of mine from our DnD game, he published three books and is a fulltime author. I shared some of my work with him on this novel I'm writing. Got a lot of red marks.

[Pryde]

It also wouldn't be too far off to have Imperial troops fighting with Cadence. Keep in mind that Kalja forged an agreement with the Empire to set up her temple on Tython.

Good relations with the Imperials, she has.

You know, I totally forgot about that. ><

[Pryde]

A friend of mine from our DnD game, he published three books and is a fulltime author. I shared some of my work with him on this novel I'm writing. Got a lot of red marks.

That and I've also been doing my own research. Checking out videos online from successful authors. The kind whose advice isn't just "go write" like so many other terrible advice givers. I both learned a lot and increased my anxiety tenfold.

Edit:

I love that there's a customize button right there when you generate an image. Just a couple of clicks and the TIE POS is gone.

[Halomek]

A friend of mine from our DnD game, he published three books and is a fulltime author. I shared some of my work with him on this novel I'm writing. Got a lot of red marks.

Nice! I've been looking into getting published myself. I've been reviewing some old stories of mine and talking to a buddy I know who works at Paizo about a potential side-gig as a contributor. All up in the air right now, but this is a year I want to make some changes to improve my personal happiness.

It's partly what drew me back here after so long. The creative energy of Exodus just never quite leaves you.

[Pryde]

The creative energy of Exodus just never quite leaves you.

Nope, just the time. ><

[Halomek]

Indeed.

You know, I was wondering if we should pick up the old thread or make a new one for Young Jedi... but now that I know your writing skills are even better, I vote for a new one. Let's call the old thread a rough draft.

We could start off with the same story beats to keep things consistent, but then see how it goes from there...

[Archangel]

I just ripped the physical description of Consecro Nadeus from his wiki page and Bing did a surprisingly good job with it (even though it ran out of characters before it got the whole description):



I tried throwing together a few other characters, but I didn't dig into it too much. My penchant for 20-something white guys made a bunch of them look the same even though they shouldn't have been. I'm interested in pushing it to "learn" more about Star Wars alien species, or (better yet) using it to create images for my own intellectual property.

EDIT: Oof, I wish I could give it a "starter image," like you can with some other art generators. It seems to have zero capacity to create something that it hasn't seen before, and no matter how explicitly you describe it, it just ignores the parts of the request it doesn't understand.

[Pryde]

I've been dropping image links in the prompt like I do with Midjourney. I don't know if it's reading them or not, though... Maybe could try it with a character I made on midjourney and see if that has any influence on what I get.

[Pryde]

Indeed.

You know, I was wondering if we should pick up the old thread or make a new one for Young Jedi... but now that I know your writing skills are even better, I vote for a new one. Let's call the old thread a rough draft.

We could start off with the same story beats to keep things consistent, but then see how it goes from there...

I don't really remember what my original plan was, but I've got some new ideas. Might change the opening post a bit, though.

[Pryde]

Might change the opening post a bit, though.

There. Something like that.

The idea that Katy would mirror Isis is something I wish I had thought of years ago. ><

[Halomek]

Nice!

I'll start working on a post fairly similar to my original one, but maybe I can help set the scene better about what Tython is all about. At the time of this story, it would have gone through 20+ years of development since Kalja founded it.

[Pryde]

Bing really likes Kylo. This guy keeps creeping into my images with the same energy as that "You know I could take what I want," line from the Force Awakens.

[Halomek]

Oh yeah, I can't tell you how many times his mask showed up on a Sivter image I was generating.

[Pryde]

Omg, this is turning my indifference to his character into loathing. ><