Last week we showed you how generative AI can help you in your business with writing production descriptions and social media posts. Today we are going to show you have it can help you in your creative endeavors. As a quick refresher generative AI uses algorithms along with tremendous amounts of data to create brand-new things. As an artist, I think it is important to understand that this is not necessarily something that is going to replace what you do but something that can supplement what you do. There are several of these types of AI software but we are going to be looking specifically at DALL-E 2
The cure for the creative block
If you are an artist you have surely found yourself looking for inspiration. This may entail searching online for works from other artists, going to a museum, or looking through a book of some of your favorite works. The challenge here is, that the body of work you have to look at is limited to just that which has been created by other artists. What you are searching for may have never been created before in which case AI can be of assistance. With the correct set of prompts, you can have AI generate something for you that can inspire you with something totally unique.
As you can tell from my attempt to create a platypus portrait that would make DiVinci proud this is far from an exact science. First: my prompt writing skills may not have been ideal. Secondly, sometimes you get better results by being more specific, sometimes less. It’s trial and error. You’ll notice that my platypus looks more like a ferret or an otter. That may or may not be good enough for me depending on my circumstances.
Creating something in the vein of another artist
It’s no secret that we draw our inspiration from other artists. Most of us have our choice of artists that we look to for inspiration. One of the things that you can do with generative AI is to see what something might look like if it was created by someone specific.
Those are some interesting interpretations. Personally, I think the second one is a pretty solid attempt at what my favorite Batman artist might come up with when drawing the classic Sailor Man. Notice a few things about my prompt.
- Specify the medium. If you know the medium you are going to be working with it helps to use it in your prompt. Even here, when I know the artist I am asking for primarily works in this medium, it’ll help to remove some of the noise.
- Using a term like “in the style of” will tell it DALL-E to draw inspiration from this specific artist. What this means is that it’ll look at that artist’s body of work and try to create something similar to what they would create.
You can also further specify things by asking for additional objects, specifying perspectives, and requesting the use of specific colors.
Experiment
What is truly amazing about generative AI is how the things it comes up with are not necessarily what you expect but, maybe so in a good or a bad way. It may completely ignore one of your prompts giving you something that is nothing like what you were expecting whereas other times it might come up with something that isn’t necessarily what you asked for but is awesome in it’s own way giving you inspiration to create something completely unique.
Not every prompt is going to be a winner but, like anything, it takes practice to get good at. Sooner or later you’ll come to know what prompts are going to yield the best results and you can lean into those.
Hopefully, this helps in giving you the tools to aid in your creative journeys and you can start using generative AI to help inspire you. Have your own thoughts on interesting and creative uses of Gen AI? Tag us @bz_furfur. And, as always, stay unique.
