I haven’t gotten bored of the AI generated art, yet. There will almost certainly be more.
It was a whim – because I had been talking about powered armor with a friend – and I thought “what would midjourney do if I started asking it to put famous people in powered armor?” As one does. What, don’t you have thoughts like that? And, because I was thinking of comedy, and someone said something about a flag, I thought of Eddie Izzard.
Prompt used: “eddie izzard in warhammer detailed photographic –v 4”
Midjourney AI and mjr: “eddie izzard in warhammer”
It offered several other versions of Izzard:
Midjourney AI and mjr “Eddie Izzard in warhammer”
And:
Midjourney AI and mjr: “eddie izzard in warhammer”
Well, that got me on a riff of rendering other people in Warhammer kit. I have to say I love the lighting on these.
Midjourney AI and mjr: “napoleon bonaparte in warhammer powered armor”
It missed a trick by not covering his armor with imperial eagles, but that would require artistic creativity that the AI has not developed yet.
Midjourney AI and mjr: “pee wee herman in warhammer powered armor”
And another of my favorites. I think the AI has pretty good models of the quintessential blond bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. I’ve got a whole folder of Marilyn Monroe images from midjourney, because she’s my default named figure to use. Perhaps I’ll do a full posting of them, but let me give you a hint for one trick to create stunning midjourney images: “black and white shallow depth of field spotlit elegant in the style of hurrell”
Midjourney AI and mjr: “marilyn monroe looking at the camera wearing an elegant satin dress. black and white shallow depth of field photographic elegant in the style of hurrell”
In addition to the Warhamer armor riff, I have also been doing images of famous people skateboarding. I.e.: Louis XIV and Richelieu. There is some impressive results there.
For the space marine images, I started including an armor prompt:
I enjoy the dynamic pose so I’ve taken to seeding the engine with imagery that is likely to appeal to me. Now I have a folder full of pictures of Marilyn Monroe, skateboarders, and Warhammer cosplayers.
By the way, if any of you are having trouble feeding prompt images to midjourney, the approach I have hit upon is to start a private chat with the ‘bot, then send the images to the bot in the chat. Once the image is uploaded, I copy the image link and feed that to the prompt. That way I can be sure that the bot will be able to access the image, since it’s coming right from the ‘bot’s discord chat. Feel free to share any tricks you’ve got in the comments!
Midjourney AI and mjr: “sinead o’connor in warhammer powered armor”
As I look at midjourney’s renderings of Sinead, I think “wow, she looks intense” and then I realize that pretty much any picture anyone ever sees of Sinead, she’s looking intense. So, good for midjourney, well done.
Last two have to be Marilyn Monroe:
Midjourney AI and mjr: “Marilyn Monroe in warhammer powered armor”
Ad Victoriam!
Now, she looks angry.
I haven’t gotten bored of viewing the AI generated art yet either, so keep up the good work.
Some of those Eddie Izzard images actually look like a cross between you (no disrespect of course) and Kiefer Sutherland.
If you haven’t seen it before, there’s a YouTuber named Jill Bearup who among other things is trained in stage combat and has some interesting takes on the unrealistic/impractical styles of armor that fantasy heroines are depicted wearing.
this version of midj frequently puts weird schmutz on people’s faces. perhaps the next version will not.
I will have to take your word on the power armor thing, since I’ve never seen or played WOW. They are pretty cool, but why does Eddie have Braveheart blue face paint and apparently a saw blade for lower teeth?
The lighting on Sinead is fantastic, but I’m pretty sure that’s based on Cersei Lannister from GOTS, with a cute spray of dried blood on her cheek.
Everybody in WH40K looks angry. And with good reason!
I’m actually kinda surprised that midjourney hasn’t been well enough trained on WH40K yet to know she should be in Adepta Sororitas power armour… Apparently it thinks everybody’s an Ultramarine. (Or is that just because you used one as your prompt?) Although the thought of Sinead O’Connor as a member of the Sisterhood is frankly terrifying…
Another interesting point: in the one of Marylin in the satin dress, she’s way slimmer than she ever was IRL. I guess we’ve already taught AI our weird contemporary beauty standards – well done everybody!
@3:
Warhammer and World of Warcraft are entirely different things. Actually, Warhammer is a whole bunch of different things, but none of them are WoW. It’s a common mistake though.
@ Tethys
What does any of this have to do with WOW?
lasius@#5:
What does any of this have to do with WOW?
People who aren’t gamers can be forgiven for lumping them into broad categories. But, you’re right: Warhammer and World of Warcraft are very different things. I think the main similarity is crazy shoulder armor.
To balance the Warhammer-ness with some Wow-ness, here’s midjourney’s take on “Marilyn Monroe as a death knight from World of Warcraft”
Actually Izzard looks much more like a top brass Imperial Guard officer, or an Inquisitor, than a Space Marine. Though that’s pre-transition Izzard. She really ought to be wearing something a touch more feminine these days.
As for the Monroes, they look like Inquisitors too. I think the AI decided to feminise Space Marine armour, rather than using the much less ubiquitous but much more apt Sororitas armour (no corset or habit over the top for starters, rounded rather than cylindrical shoulder pauldrons, and what seems to be the remains of an aquila on the chest, rather than the Sisterhood’s fleur de lys).
For the true afficionado, though, they really ought to have Mona Lisa faces.
Alas, Izzard’s armor and facemarkings should be dark purple and pink. I did paint a set of those miniature marines pink and put musical symbols on their monstrous shoulder plates. It looks good.
Lasius
They are the same thing to non-gamers, and Marcus is quite correct in assuming that I’ve lumped them together because both games feature crazy shoulder armor. They also both have a lot of Ws in their titles. I stopped playing video games when my 5 year old could beat me in Nintendo games. I’m just here for the AI art.
The first Marilyn Monroe image reminds me of a question that’s been in the back of my mind — if you put lots of detail into the prompt, does each detail actually make it into the image?
I wondered if a photographer might put in specific lighting jargon, and have the subject show up with that lighting. It certainly looks that way for the first Monroe, but does more specific wording always result in the proper results?
I wonder if the AI can differentiate between Harrell photos of Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow? The extra slim Marilyn looks more like Jean to me, and it’s very similar to this one, where she wears an elegant satin dress and the shadows exaggerate her figure.
https://fromthebygone.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/jean-harlow.jpg?w=549
@Tethys#9:
What’s funny is that nobody’d ever wear such goody shoulder armor if they had to actually fight in it. Armor evolved to be the way it is because of ruthless battlefield culling.
I think the samurai yoroi was a bit more practical than the European stuff, but I’m biassed. I used to groan and cringe regularly at the armor in both WoW and Warhammer.
The powered armor in Fallout is kind of well thought-out: you have a mobility frame and hang pieces of plating onto it. There are still a lot of fudges, like why not have 360-degree vision in the helmets, etc.
The first Marilyn Monroe image reminds me of a question that’s been in the back of my mind — if you put lots of detail into the prompt, does each detail actually make it into the image?
Not necessarily! It sometimes does and sometimes does not. Sometimes I just repeat the prompt: “elegant elegant elegant” and often have to specify “full length” because Hurrell did not do full length often.
You can lead Midjourney tightly if you give it a bunch of prompt images. I managed to get a topless Marilyn once (with extra nipples that looked like radio dials) but the programmers figured that trick out and now it classifies the prompt images and considers even a bikini to be “nsfw”. Fucking American prudery is so annoying.