My Adventures in AI Art

My special interest right now is AI art.  

I had read a little about it months ago, and Jack had given us some demonstrations.  But I didn't get very into it until a few weeks ago.

Someone I follow on Instagram posted their art with a link to the Starryai account and app.  I quickly decided to give it a try and soon became fairly obsessed.  I even bought a couple months of the pro version.  

I have come to figure out that with the free version, you get 5 credits a day; plus you can earn credits by watching an add or posting your artwork on social media.  There are limits, though.  Otherwise, I might be spamming Instagram and watching tons of ads all day.

Each credit allows you to use one prompt (which can include a ton of words) and the result will include four different pictures.  

The pro account comes with a bunch of extra credits. I sadly used up those within a couple of days. I'm not sure if they gave me all the extra credits at once, and I've used them all. OR if there's a monthly allotment, and at some point, I'm going to get a lot of credits again.

There's controversy surrounding the AI art, because you can tell the AI to make art in the style of specific artists.  Some (many?) artists aren't happy about this.  I've been mostly avoiding using prompts with the names of artists.  

Until recently, I was somewhat overwhelmed by all the style prompts there are to choose one.  I would kind of test various things out, often being unhappy with the results.  One of the problems is I don't know what a lot of things mean, and I think sometimes I would contradict myself.

A few days ago, I decided to make all my art acrylic on canvas and spend more time describing what I want.  I've been much more happier with the results.

In terms of subjects, every so often I use my personal angst to come up with prompts but mostly I've been going down the list of my dream symbols (objects, characters, and places) on the Oniri app.  And then I try to add some extra context, color ideas, etc.  

But...anyway....enough of my blabbing.

I'm going to share some of what I've received from my AI friends. 

This is one of the first I did. I was trying
to recreate "Dream City" the place I try
to go to in most of my lucid dreams. 

Another picture of Dream City

The subject prompt for this one was "The three doctors are
wondering what to do". I don't remember why I used that 
particular prompt, but I do know I was surprised that it 
ended up being a Doctor Who thing. I had been thinking
about medical doctors.  As this picture illustrates, AI art is 
not so great at counting.  

This is one of my favorites but when I was still all over
the place in terms of prompts.  My main desire, though,
was a blue, Victorian style restaurant.

Disney World, specifically Epcot
with way too many prompts...that
probably contradicted each other

With this one I was going for Anxious Hands, anxiety.
What struck me most about this result is that the 
girl in the picture sort of looks like me as a child.
Or at least I think so.  You CAN use actual photos
for a starting point.  But I didn't with that one. 
Using photos was something I did when I had
tons of credits.  I wasn't pleased with 
the results, so I had stopped trying.  

AI is great for creating unintentional horror.  This was
just supposed to be children at a birthday party in 1977...which 
would have been the year I had my first classmates-invited
birthday party.  

More unintentional horror. This one was supposed
to be a worried mother.  And yeah. I guess
there is reason to worry there.  

This one was supposed to be someone wearing
shorts and headphones.  Only the headphones showed up.
I was essentially trying to make autistic people.    

I think this was around the time that I
decided I would stick to the acrylic paint option
for most/all of my AI art.  I was happy with the results here,
and I've been happier since using the acrylic paint. 

With this and the one below, I had wanted
flowers, Creepers, Daleks, and monkeys. I
didn't think I had gotten Creepers but now
I'm thinking...maybe the guy on the right? 

I didn't get the frosting I requested, but I'm quite
happy that AI came through with the cherries
and cookies. 

Words used for this prompt included therapist,
neurodivergent, fun, kind, couch, and plushies. I
think this represents my hopes/fantasies for if I ever
manage to find a good therapist for
neurodivergent folks.  

I was trying to do a girl flying in the street
during a lucid dream.  

I have a lot more I want to share. I'll do so in future posts. Probably. 

With the photo posts I've been doing lately...I kind of worry a bit about reaching the Blogger-photo limit. Is there still one?

Read my novel: The Dead are Online