Nerve Pixel Artificial Intel
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
Oh gosh. This Ai thing. It’s real. It's accelerating. There is no turning back or room for purism. Sorry, but all things are fair game now. Ai has been worked into my creative workflow, and it has had an accelerating effect. In what I interpret to be a good way. As an artist/storyteller, I have been somewhat intimidated and terrified of the Ai rampage. But I’m over it now. Just even Google Gemini has become one of my very best workmates. It turns me into three people at once, and if I can think it, I can “get it.” This sounds cryptic.
Remember, I am a 61-year-old white male that has relied on a traditional marketing income that was once a lucrative business. But marketing and design branding has died or been transformed into something enigmatic and, it seems to me, non-tangible. Last year I spent a lot of my time swimming upstream. Maybe I just needed some time. Maybe Ai needed some time. Maybe both.
In the last few months I put an Ai workflow to the test with my latest and longest ongoing project: “There Is a Devil in My Basement.” This is a memoir/style graphic novel about past family trauma and, well, the Devil and a few other interesting characters. This project is a huge undertaking, both emotionally and creatively. BUT with the advancements with just basic AI—non-paying Ai accounts like Google Gemini—I have found a liberating and exciting workflow process that has me spinning my visual narratives faster than the speed of light.
I had some great convictions at the beginning by “not drawing EVERY” simple line and tone all by myself, but I’m over it. I want to tell my story, and I want to entertain. Being bogged down by a “purist” attitude was getting me nowhere. But oh, the guilt and shame of utilizing Ai? You infidel! Betrayer of the arts! Traitor!
I chewed on my hands for a few days, but the more I prompted and the more I wrote exacting descriptions for scenes and storyboard shots in Google Gemini, the MORE I loved the process. I watched my creativity unfold and my vision take form faster and better than I ever imagined. There is no turning back now, and I plan to utilize EVERY Ai perk I can to get this project completed at a sky-high level. I am still doing a great deal of drawing and creating my own visions, but to have almost exact reference sources or foundational images for world-building that I can create easily and almost instantly brings magic to the page. I can create 4 or 5 room scenes with listed details in all and watch the variations take form right in front of me. I can crop, merge, alter, and redraw in my own language faster than I can write the script. And I love the process because I can see the project emerge right before my eyes faster than ever before.
The prompting is an interesting challenge, and it’s almost like learning a new language or “way” of conversation when it comes to creating a visual narrative that will work. I know that I pull on all of my years of knowledge for what to ask and how to interpret the Ai results and transform them into my own visual language. I steer the boat completely—but with some exceptions I discover happy accidents or details that the Ai adds in that I didn’t think of or even ask for in any way. I plan on documenting some of my workflow in future articles to give you an idea of how it all works for me. Sure, it may all sound very simple, but it’s not—there is a load of intuition, and because you don’t have to burn all of your energy drawing an ashtray from scratch, you can spend that extra time and effort on stylization and composition.
I still fully render most things with my own hand, but I do add accents and details that I would normally never allot time for. I have decided to persue Ai in a more serious capacity and have started to delve into video and commercial applications. I hope to find paid work in Ai sooner than later, and I feel that with my extensive visual talent, I can bring a powerhouse level of curation and bespoke skill sets. The thing for me is I know I can draw that “ashtray.” I don’t need to prove it to myself or anyone else. I earned it a long time ago. Now I can spend more time doing what I love—telling the story or creating exactly what I envision—faster and easier than ever before. More soon.
