Stylized Reimaginings Back Home Using DALL-E

I won't pretend to have a fully developed position on the use of AI to generate digital art. I'm hesitant in using the verb "create" here. However, the thought of trying it out on a slow day back home opened up a whole new world, inspiring my comparison to isekai anime.

I used Open AI's DALL-E, named after Salvador Dali and Wall-E. For $15, you get 115 credits. Each credit corresponds to one prompt that generates four images. Each generation costs about 13 cents. Although each image comes down to 3.25 cents each, usually one or two fit the prompt well. Refinements take up a credit, but generate new variations.

It's Salvador Dali!

"a brain melting, synapses firing, taking in the mysteries of the universe,
cosmic, yet quantum, in the style of Salvador Dali"

 

My First Impressions using DALL-E

I don't actually recommend using DALL-E just to take a look. Since it costs money to get credits, the use-case would need to justify the premise. For me, this could be a tool for future blog content, and here are some tips to get some better results:

• You have to be oddly specific to get what you want. It's a monkey's paw or a genie's lamp. Or you need to be okay with the four generated images from your prompt.
• It is awful at generating realistic looking images from prompts. Sculptures and buildings didn't come out looking like a single object.
• It fudges hands, feet, and faces. In some ways, it's not too dissimilar compared to human artists. 
• Refine the prompt. This usually made better results than generating variations.
• If it does generate an image you like, go for a variation. I rarely liked the new images over the first one, but sometimes it nails a desired style.
• It is decent at interpreting styles. As I'll share below, I just added "isekai anime, digital art" to all of my prompts and it maintained the style pretty well.
• Simple and specific works well. Nouns, relationships, and positions show up pretty well, but sometimes the framing of the subject needs to be prompted. Fewer objects seems better.
  

Isekai Anime Reinterpretation

Isekai anime are ones where the protagonist goes to another world. After playing around with DALL-E, I settled on trying prompts from this very blog. On Day 8, I reinterpreted Days 1-3 and Days 4-6 on my trip back home. Like in comic books, different artists draw the same character differently, sometimes jarringly differently. I haven't figured out a literary description of myself just yet. Also, any hair color seems possible, true to the anime inspiration to my prompts. The "slice of life" mindset seems decent if you can ignore the changes in character design since their isn't any continuity between prompts.

Days 1-3

This was mostly travel from Seattle to New Orleans, and doing things around the house.

Vacuum sealing and packing.

Taking the light rail.

That whole bag mix-up episode at the airport.

Animoo Tatiana Erukimova.

Thai lunch buffet with mom.

Blending up almond milk.

Fixing the treadmill.

Jump to the real version of Days 1-3.

 

Days 4-6

These days were spent going to Baton Rouge and seeing movies.

Driving on the interstate in Louisiana.

At Taste and See, the Sushi Buffet.

Trip to the bookstore before the movie.

Watching a superhero movie.

"Something about the woke mob," said the LA governor front-runner,
posing with books he never read. smh

I didn't actually write about this, but I scored applications.

It went overboard with purple.

Jump to the real version of Days 4-6.
 

Discussion

My brother compared my blogging to Kevin McCalister from Home Alone narrating his day or the nostalgia of having a  LiveJournal. This is a shareable journal to freestyle and remix some scholarly and some silly thoughts.

At the time of writing, I have about 60 credits left. I won't generate too many images for future blogs, except in some recap posts or a composited story. A similar post for Days 7-10 will probably be folded into getting ready for the quarter to start at UW.

I feel like I will usually go with photos and videos I take from my phone or painting pictures with words, but an occasional short project can be fun. I will probably explore some of the learning and pedagogical implications of AI; I tend to favor its deliberate use as a tool, rather than something to suppress. 

Blogging about using AI digital art generation.

I want to ask students, "What do you think about AI generated images? Is it art? Will it put people out of a job? Will it create new jobs?"

Other Parts of This Trip [August 2023]

• Visit Days 1-3.
• Visit Days 4-6.
• Visit Days 7-9.
• Visit Days 10-11.