More Fun and More Necromancy, Affecting Poetics

The particular mix of artists used in the last post is proving particularly rewarding. As a reminder, we used Caravaggio, Picasso, and Bosch to produce some generic battle scenes. These scenes were interesting. One of them was downright inspired. 

In this post, we'll be playing a different angle. We're going to try some affective phrases as opposed to generic scenes. So, I used: "the last of breath of man" + "Caravaggio, Hieronymus Bosch, Pablo Picasso", and what do we get?

The striking thing about this image is the uniform coloring (Picasso) and the shadowing (Caravaggio). You get a few figures that look like Tolkien's dwarves that are maybe a bit Boschean. This seems ideal to try to evolve a bit more. But, we got another that is similar and superior:

We can see Picasso in the layout, Caravaggio in the shadowing, and we also get more Bosch in this painting. There's something weird going on with that guy's groin too. And then, there's a guy in the lower left-hand corner that looks like he really disapproves.

Finally, here's a picture of a guy with an exclamation point for a penis:

What does any of this have to do with man's last breath? I'll leave that to your ample imagination. The AI's approach to the generation is more varied, however. We get different types of scenes as opposed to 4 efforts at a battlefield scene. One is highly surrealist, one is a frozen moment of action, and the other is a bizarre figure painting. 

Images like these can be worked over indefinitely by the AI. If we like the figure of the man but want a new background, the algorithm allows us to create a mask over the background and then redraw around the figure. Let's try. First, we create the mask:

At the bottom, you'll find a warning about disappointing results. I report that I have been mostly ecstatic with the results. Let's be a little more intentional and explicit this time with our input. Instead of something affective, we want something descriptive. So, let's choose, "enemies closing in from all directions". Penis man is about to be under attack. We are still ensuring that our three artists are a part of the generation process. Results:

Okay, so the AI took the approach of supplying similarly-sized figures into the scene or alternatively, ignoring the directive entirely and meshing out the background. We like the first one the best, but it's blending black and white with color in a way we don't like. How do we get rid of that? In this case, you can run the algorithm through, and it will make the figures more uniform, while also blending the colors. So, if your only problem with the image is the color, you're better off with a filter. Also, we now realize that penis man is better off alone.