The Good Stuff #1
Who is making good AI art?
On Tuesday we looked at the bad, today it’s time to focus on the good. Who is creating interesting art using generative AI? What tools are they using? Where can their art be found? It’s something that, for the moment, will be a monthly feature and today we focus on images. There is one ground rule:
No fan art
That eliminates a lot of content. But it doesn’t dismiss it. Fan art and people using gen AI tools to celebrate and build on existing IP (sorry) will continue to drive a large part of the online culture around gen AI. And future tools, allowing people to, say, escape behind the walls of their own personal Hogwarts will be the tipping point for lots of these innovations becoming mainstream. But for The Good Stuff issue, we’re focused on what’s moving the dial, what’s opening-up fresh worlds.
As for future Good Stuff editions, do get involved. Pop a comment in Substack, tweet @ExplainableLtd, or mail contact@explainable.online if there’s something that has caught your eye.
Midjourney and the ‘gram
In a past edition we shared the maxim, “lots of generative AI content looks OK… until you talk to an expert” and that’s born out when searching for striking AI art. The art that made an impact came from experts in their field, whether that is a digital artist dedicated to the medium, a professional photographer with an AI alt account, or a make-up artist exploring the future of the craft.
People who had the technical language available to precisely describe what they wanted, the knowledge to touch up initial work when needed, and the creative spark to imagine something unique in the first place.
Instagram proved the best source of AI-generated images and, should you wish to do a dive yourself, searching for ‘midjourney’ delivers far stronger examples than searches for generic AI terms or for ‘stable diffusion’ (results are pretty gross!) or ‘dall-e’ (results are pretty meh!). Admittedly unscientific, but Midjourney seems to be ahead in the battle of text-to-image tools among creatives.
Committing to a bit
Beyond standalone pieces or small projects, there’s been a trend for world-building offered by AI tools. Animator and designer Gabriel Aronson has been posting images from “an imagined World’s Fair from an alternative past” for the past 10 months. His Artomaton Instagram, with its accompanying Etsy shop, has attracted 32,000 followers who, judging from comments, have completely bought into the world and its aesthetic.
That commitment to a theme, and a retrofuture aesthetic, is also seen in the popular Land of Arca account. Midjourney, which seems to be behind most of the images, lends itself well to the retrofuturism style.
A tactile future
It’s easy to solely focus on end result, what artists create when handed new tools. But there are opportunities for artists to create new tools themselves. Zhaodi Feng, is a Royal College of Art graduate who created an interactive toolkit called Promptac. It allows artists to be very specific about texture and shape by manipulating AI design with hand gestures and real-world objects.
Feng’s project, recently reported as part of Dezeen’s great AItopia series, is still at the prototype stage. But it’s great to see an AI tool that promises more tactile work, rather than less.
Everyday art
This is where the Good Stuff deviates from ‘striking art’ into ‘something that will work for the job I need done today’. On Midjourney there is a community feed allowing you to see, in a similar style to Reddit, what’s trending, what’s new, and what is highly ranked. It can unearth some gems, but it’s also a great place to find a style you need for a particular project.
Every image comes with the prompt attached, so you can see, for example, the above image was prompted by “Rocky Mountains on a sunny day in vector art, strong detailed colors, super realistic 4k” and that gives you a jump-off prompt for the poster you need printed by end-of-day.
It’s also good for figuring out the styles that work best in AI when starting from scratch, vector art definitely being one. If you’re a designer with a basic understanding of photo editing you’re pulling your hair out here. “This isn’t revolutionary!” you shout. Well yeah, it’s not for you. But it is for someone working on a shoestring who would like a nice promo for, say, the office fundraising event.