From Abstract Aliens to Cosmic Baristas: My Quest for AI Artistry
My journey with NightCafé and how it can elevate your artistic creations to new galaxies.
Hard to believe, but I’ve been futzing with AI art on NightCafé for a month now. I’d dabbled with DALL-E for some time, but not consistently. The social aspect of NightCafé is probably the biggest draw. Besides sharing content and seeing what others have made, but I get prompt ideas and support. Perhaps the biggest advantage are the challenges. I‘m slowing getting better. Today, I got into the top 20% for the third time in an official daily challenge.
# The art of art generation.
The theme of the daily challenge was Coffee Shop in Space. I created maybe 20 or so images before landing on this one. My first attempt were abstract and alien, but not very interesting. I then shifted to coffee cups and starry backdrops. That tended to create nice looking mugs, but often with pictures of stars on them. Not quite what I was going for.
Deciding to return to my original prompt, I selected a more advance model with a slightly different prompt. The final result was perfect and a bit of a surprise. The randomness of the routines is one part I keep reminding people of. There is a bit of luck in coxing the right image out of the AI. I’ve found it can just as easily generate really bad art from the same prompt.
Coffee time. 2023 by Steven Reid
For my submission, I ended up using the SDXL 0.9 model. This is Stable Diffusion's latest model (1.0 is in preview) and tends to create images similar to MidJourney. To be honest, I’m still a newbie and learning how to use all the different tools at my disposal. But the model worked wonders on my prompt. For those interested, here is what I used:
“space helmet wearing alien barista with tentacles, portrait, working a Cappuccino machine, asteroids and stars in backdrop, colorful”
– Coffee time. 2023 by Steven Reid
Now, the final image is a bit quirky. Besides being space oriented, it has a bit of an aquatic vibe as well. The stars and planets on the table and in the sky lend a different feel to the image. Others seemed to think so as well. Although I still enjoy creating my own art, this journey has been quite rewarding.
If you are interested, you can view my published creations on my profile: SafePit on NightCafé.