Category: Man Still Dreams of the Stars

AI, my love

Add “normal person social interaction cues” and integrate it as a HUD with regular glasses. I could have used this YEARS ago.

MidJourney: can you illustrate it?

So can you make MidJourney / AI art generators illustrate your stories for you? Yes and no–not yet. Will you be able to? Yes, soon. Did it draw me a picture of a caracal in a trench coat? Yes. Lots. (“Oh, that’s nice, that’s a lynx.” “That’s a caracal.” “Oh.” “That one’s a lynx.” “Ok, ok, ok, I see, I see, so, now, just for my benefit, Riders?” “Yes?” “In the future, how do I know which one’s a lynx and which one is a caracal?”) Did it also put eyepatches on them? No, for some reason it completely refused to put eyepatches on them, weird.Can I describe an isolated scene or mental image and have it 100% fulfilled?

No, not yet–and also YES TOTALLY.

  • Prompt: “a man looks down at his injured chest and arm, which are emitting black smoke, smooth, ultra-detailed digital art” Note that the word “bleeding,” much like the word “cleavage” is not allowed.

    This was done three months ago, with Version 3 or a very early beta of Version 4. It took about five upgrades to get it this far.
    Prompt: “a man looks down at his injured chest and arm, which are emitting black smoke, smooth, ultra-detailed digital art” Note that the word “bleeding,” much like the word “cleavage” is not allowed.

    This was done three months ago, with Version 3 or a very early beta of Version 4. It took about five upgrades to get it this far.
  • ‘Prompt: “a man looks down at his wounded arms, which are emitting black smoke”

    This was done three days ago with the current version of V4.’Prompt: “a man looks down at his wounded arms, which are emitting black smoke” (I didn’t specify “ultra-smooth digital art” because I forgot the exact prompt and I didn’t think it would be necessary. It wasn’t. Anyhoo.)

    This was done three days ago with the current version of V4.
  • This is really, really close to my mental image of the character/scene, but _not quite there yet._

    (Although, *one* hand is completely good, give it that!)
  • This one is also _oh so close._ I went with this one because the pose is less difficult for the AI to screw up.

    So, MidJourney v4 has a remaster mode that will allow you to modify your base prompt when generating variants of an image.
  • Reworked prompt: “<https://s.mj.run/TrNSc6lspwE&gt;, a man looks down at his wounded arms, which are emitting black smoke, red hair, historical costume”
    (I tried a couple variants with “young man,” but then it kept spitting back, like, figurative babies, so.)

    On the principle that simpler is better, I didn’t specify which historical era costume.
  • This is not bad. This is not bad at all. We have emotion. We have the clutching. We have the red hair. We have smokiness and a suggestion of fire. If this was the only one, I’d have gone with this one.
  • O.M.G.

MidJourney: GUYS I CAN’T STOP HELP

  • “<https://s.mj.run/iRCGEMkeLp8&gt;, woman riding a horse, long hair, long black coat, dynamic action pose, art by frank frazetta –s 250”
    I used a reference image for this, but that only can go so far. MidJourney has not the slightest idea what reins or stirrups are.
  • “<https://s.mj.run/sBsGPphrLpI&gt;, <https://s.mj.run/CkY9K_c8b_g&gt;, woman riding a horse, background galaxies, stars, moon, art by allen anderson, art by frank frazetta, art by boris vallejo –ar 3:2 –c 75 –s 250”

    I used two reference images: one was a Hubble picture of some nebula (which you will notice was basically ignored) and the other was the above. I’d probably have fared a little better by using another real reference image, BUT. Please note that all limbs are basically a) present, b) in the correct positions, and the hands are excellent.
  • The magic is learning how to use “–seed.” Images with the same seed have the same style, palette, composition, etc/other things I don’t know the technical names of.
  • So, I was able to reroll “<https://s.mj.run/_EERC2AiG5I&gt;, woman riding horse, detailed facial features, background galaxies, stars, moon, art by allen anderson, art by frank frazetta, art by boris vallejo ar 2:3” several times with similar results.
  • The key word being “similar.” MidJourney seems basically able to handle either getting the horse right, or getting the rider right.
  • Except when it gets BOTH of them BANG ON.

    Oh my gosh.

    So awesome.
  • Her shoulder and right arm need to be fixed, and there looks like a hoof missing. Additional scifi acoutrements also need to be added, but COME ON. LOOK AT IT.
  • I genuinely can’t stop looking at this.

(I miss my horses.)

MidJourney: Guns and Blondes

  • “blonde woman aiming gun at viewer, book cover illustration, style of robert maguire 2:3”
  • So I fed it a reference image. Unfortunately….
  • “, blond woman aiming gun at viewer ::2, pulp novel cover, style of robert maguire,”
  • The watermark refused to go away at first, and then when it did go, it messed up the texture of her right eye. Otherwise, this is pretty darned perfect.
  • So I then fed it a different reference image.
  • Some kind soul cleaned up the cover art for “Black Amazon of Mars” (artist: Allen Anderson)
  • “, a red haired woman in black armor swings an axe, ruined city background, art by allen anderson, art by robert maguire”
  • MidJourney also violently resisted attempts to remix this into an ink drawing, but whatever.
  • EDITED TO ADD:
    And there we go, ladies and gents.
  • “[photo reference (pic#1) + (pic#2)] blonde woman pointing gun, art by allen anderson, art by robert maguire, book cover illustration”
    BOOM.

(Hazardous travel conditions means that I have not been working for the past two days.)

Today’s MidJourney creations

  • Okay, this was from last week. Still. Not bad. I like the watercoloryness.
  • “Light Upscale” is your friend when it comes to faces. I had to go through several upscale, well, variants, before I found one that would keep the facial shadow; the initial “upscale” went whole-hog taking it away. Additional tweaks necessary: down brightness, up contrast. Advanced tweaks: fix that gigantic right shoulder. Still. that’s pretty damn near 90%.
  • LOOK AT MY DRAGON’S EYE!
  • LOOK AT MY SPACEMAN PLUS DRAGON (it’s not a shoulder dragon but w/e, we’re working on that.)
  • LOOK AT MY SPACE DRAGON
    DRAGONS ALSO DREAM OF THE STARS!