My experiments in AI come under the heading of something like, "Know your enemy." Because ... I'm not going to dissemble here. AI bothers me. This stuuff you see here is only 50% my art. The rest? Generated by some computer. The first image here was generated originally by Wombo Dream, the other two by Lexica. But I feel "wrong" about claiming these as my pictures without painting, so ... I painted. A lot. Fair to say that by the time I was done painting, they looked very, very different from the AI original -- especially the space station.
This, at left, is what Lexica gave me, and I wasn't exactly thrilled ... but I saw the potential. So, the AI design became one element of a different (and far better) image. I guess you could say I did it this way rather than spending a tonne of money on a prop, and rendering it in Iray! Because the truth is, I don't have the cash flow now to be able to spend a lot of money on props, and I've been wondering for ages what I was going to do about that. So, for me, it comes down to a question of ethics ... nooooo, I don't feel comfortable with AI art generation, but can I use elements from these images which I prompted, in combination with a load of work, and call the final art my own? I want to say yes, because it comes down to this: I didn't design the 3D props I would render, either, so ... yeah. You see the gist of the argument. So long as I actually work on the image, "do it over," make it my own, I think I can sign off on it. Anyway, that's theory at the moment.
The first image -- the Chinese warrior -- started life in Google's AI art engine, which is now called Dream.ai, and used to be Wombo, if I understand this correctly. Wombo's results vary dramatically from prompt to prompt. It can spit out something quite good or something really bad; occasionally, it comes up with something filled with promise. I did a range of these experiments to use as the base canvases for painting, and I'll post some of the paintings as we go.
The second image began in Lexica: not bad, but flat, "tepid," and needing work. It's early days yet; as I get to know more of what I'm doing, these elements will be combined into new and radically different forms ... basically, because I don't have the bucks to buy 3D goodies anymore. They're expensive. Too rich for my blood, when my cashflow went away. So ...
AI? Sigh. I don't feel "comfortable" with the whole concept, but for me it has a part to play ... it just isn't the whole job. Not by a lot shot.
