Tag: AI generated art

MidJourney: Old-school scifi heroes wear ties

  • A dreaming man levitates through the streets, night scene, street lamp, cobblestones, spotlight, muted color palette, art by alex ross, novel cover
  • Low angle, rear view, a man in a suit watches a distant spaceship launch, style of scifi illustrations, depth of field, muted color palette
  • Low angle, three – quarters rear view, a man watches a spaceship launch, style of scifi illustration, depth of field, monotone color palette
  • Full length portrait, man in pilot flight suit, crew cut, background space ship, the rings of Saturn, depth of field, science fiction novel cover, illustrative art, high contrast palette
  • Full length portrait, woman in pilot flight suit, long hair, made of fire, space ship, the rings of Saturn, science fiction novel cover, illustrative art, high contrast palette
  • An illustration showing a man riding on a horse, a wagon on fire, in the style of epic fantasy scenes, fur cloak, hood, snow scenes, rhads, frank quitely, medievalist, golden light, american tonalism
  • An old painting, rear view, low angle, a black – cloaked figure with a hood standing on a hill looking away, holding a scythe, black robes, storm clouds, color palette black, gold, brown, tan, silver

MidJourney: Starmen of Llyrdis

The typography is very good. But it’s not the right cover for this book.

So, over on the According to Hoyt promo post, there is a link to a reissue of Leigh Brackett’s classic and excellent Starmen of Llyrdis, re-packaged by Jason Fleming and with a new cover that, not to mince words, is awful.

(This is not to say that you should not read the book, which is truly excellent; and if you’re going to do that, you might as well support a local sf author and buy that copy of it: amazon link.)

But the cover has absolutely nothing to do with the story, only hints at the genre, and in fact highlights a character that is barely in the novel and generally has an antagonistic role.

The Starmen of Llyrdis is a novel from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by one of the Grandmasters of the genre. It’s about a sense of wonder, exploration, the boldness of explorers and the yearning of all men to sail beyond the shores they know. It showcases a cast of vivid (if sketchy) pulp fiction-esque iconic characters, very few of whom are poutingly passive space princesses. (There is an enormously wealthy love interest….who is again, mostly an antagonist. You’re not going to catch her pouting pensively: she’s too busy driving men insane for her own personal amusement and laughing at them for falling for it.) It’s full of nightmarish forbodings and blazingly-fast action.

Those are things that are not really conveyed well by having a flat-angle portrait as your cover.

So, I headed over to MidJourney and spent about ten minutes generating art, and then I went into Powerpoint and spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out fonts and such. That’s definitely the part that needs expertise.

The images are different sizes because I forgot to set the aspect ratio initially and just cropped them down to rectangles in powerpoint afterwards.

  • They watch a starship launch into the night, style of science fiction novel cover illustrations, moon, stars, galaxy, white flames, depth of field, art by allen anderson
  • They watch a starship launch into the night, style of science fiction novel cover illustrations, moon, stars, galaxy, white flames, depth of field, art by allen anderson
  • Watching a starship launch into the starry night sky, style of science fiction illustrations, moon, stars, galaxy, white flames, depth of field
  • Watching a starship launch into the starry night sky, style of science fiction illustrations, moon, stars, galaxy, white flames, depth of field

Anyhow, it’s a good book.

MidJourney: the good news is

…that it’s getting really good at hands.

  • I fed this two image prompts (one from Dall-E and one from a previous MidJ attempt at A Shadow), plus A shadowy male figure wearing hat and cloak, ominous, mysterious, dreamlike style, neo noir WORDPRESS WHY CAN I NOT USE QUOTATION MARKS? What do you have against the ENTER key?
  • This one, courtesy of the DESCRIBE feature, is: An illustration of a mysterious male figure wearing hat and flowing cloak in the city from black mask game, film noir aesthetic, tokina at – x 11 – 16mm f/ 2. 8 pro dx ii, cartoonish character design, monochromatic sculptor, luminous light and shadow, dc comics, vienna secession. Most of that is gobbledygook/filler. The trick is finding out which bits of gobbledygook MidJ pays attention to.
  • Same prompt.
  • Can MidJourney draw out in physical (digital) form the images I have in my head? Yes, but also no, and it helps to be able to help it along. So the stairs (and waterfall) in this image came from a photo prompt, and though the figure is just about perfect although not really dejected enough, the rest of the mountain and winding stair got lost. Ah well.
  • Sam and Telzey from my intermittently posted drabble cycle. I never realized Sam had curly hair.
  • “Samurai tiger, ukiyo-e inspired, pencil drawing”
    “Samurai tiger, ukiyo-e inspired, pencil drawing”
    “Samurai tiger, ukiyo-e inspired, pencil drawing”
    “Samurai tiger, ukiyo-e inspired, pencil drawing”

WordPress, DIE IN A FIRE.

MidJourney: Dragons are a girl’s best friend

  • HOLY CATS THIS IS AWESOME
  • IDK why MidJourney thought that girls + dragons = books, but IT IS COMPLETELY CORRECT.
  • GUYS GUESS WHAT, I JUST READ AN EPIC FANTASY NOVEL RECOMMENDED TO ME BY LARRY CORREIA AND–
  • Obviously a funny one. Probably by Pratchett.
  • TURN THE PAGE ALREADY SARAH.
  • CONNIE I DONT NEED TO SEE THE PICTURES JUST KEEP READING
  • WHAT DID YOU THINK BROWN GIRLS COULDNT READ TO DRAGONS? KEEP ON TURNING THEM PAGES DEENORA! (Kudos to MidJourney there, I was genuinely surprised to see this one.) BOOYA.
  • Tina hasnt finished her homework on her own for WEEKS.
  • Amelia: We are never going to get the Spell of UnDerpiness right if you keep blowing the book out of my hands.

MidJourney: caracal caracal

  • <https://s.mj.run/ojA8vIFG57A&gt;, a seated caracal wearing a trench coat, fluffy tail, full length, detailed pencil drawing”
  • a fortunetelling ferret, elaborate wrapped turban, crystal ball, pillars, hanging drapes, detailed pencil drawing
  • I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
  • an irish wolfhound wearing a safety vest and hard helmet, pencil drawing, working dog, pencil drawing, –V5
  • Is it just me or does this guy look like Jack Palance playing a Mongol chieftain?
  • Yup.
  • I never realized that my yet to be written stories were all illustrated by N. C. Wyeth

MidJourney….seriously, guys, send help

  • “morgan le fay, art by john william waterhouse”
  • “morgan le fay, art by edward burne-jones”
  • “morgan le fay, art by N. C. Wyeth”
  • “king arthur, art by N.C. Wyeth”
    I may point out that it is historically accurate that the gloves attached to armored gauntlets might only have two or three fingers.
    Not that I think MidJourney knew that…
  • “action scene, motion, sir lancelot, art by N. C. Wyeth”
    This is really great.
  • “action scene, motion, sir lancelot, art by N. C. Wyeth” (same prompt, different seed.)
  • This was generated by using the previous two Lancelot images and the /blend command.
  • This was generated using the same two images, with /imagine, plus a text prompt. All of the upscales were semi-spectacular, but had definite “AI art problems.” Stay tuned.

At some point in time I’m just going to have to relearn photoshop.