Artificial-intelligence models including Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and DALL·E 2 are cheering technology enthusiasts and causing tremors among artists — for good reason. Those breakthroughs in software represent the best generative-art platforms, full of breathtaking images and videos created from users’ prompts.
Here are two examples of art generated by Midjourney, my favorite of the bunch:
To create this art, users write special keywords to guide the algorithm. These keywords, also known as prompts, describe the scene to the AI. (For example: “The Lady of the Lake rising from water.”). You then define the aspect ratio of the image or resolution (say, 16:9, 800 x 600), the preferred style (oil painting in the style of Salvador Dali, etc.) and other parameters that describe the scene in finer detail. Here’s an example of one of my creations and the instructions. The prompt: Path to salvation by Zdzislaw Beksinski, Craig Mullins, Yoji Shinkawa, complementary colors, intricate details, trending on ArtStation, symmetrical, silk red blue yellow orange black embroidery, Peter Mohrbacher, hyper-detailed, intricate, elite, art nouveau, ornate, liquid wax, marble, elegant, luxury, CGSociety, hyper-maximalist, golden ratio, environmental key art, octane render, Weta Digital, depth of field, ray trace, 8k.The result:
Keywords have an intricate effect on the final creation, and each individual prompt needs to be fine-tuned to generate an image that closely corresponds to an artist’s vision. Although anyone can type, creating an individual artwork isn’t a straightforward process. After you enter the prompt, the Midjourney AI will generate a 1×2 or 2×2 grid that consists of different interpretations of the provided input. It is up to the user to generate variations based on one of the suggestions, resubmit the entire prompt to the algorithm, or decide to pick one of the given images and upscale (resize) it. The upscaled images are finalized, and that is what I’ve been sharing with you here. As a portrait artist who spent most of my time working with a stylus and a tablet, I’ve found Midjourney to be one of the best tools I could possibly imagine. While most users stop after generating a piece, my creative journey is just starting. I take Midjourney’s interpretation and refine it, or use the composition and color scheme and start laying in details of my own. This way I’m able to accelerate my process from something that took month(s) to mere days. Not all artists share my sentiment. Many complain that generative art is nothing more than an amalgam of art that’s already floating around internet, which is then processed, remixed and spat out by an algorithm without rhyme or reason. They say the result is soulless because it wasn’t entirely gene …