My newest artwork, Snake In The Void, was an experiment on my part in doing most, if not all, of the image editing, kaleidoscope filtering, and other such modifications, before passing the artwork through the deepdreamgenerator Deep Style AI !
Raw material
I started out with a Weave from Weavesilk
As you can see, the centerpiece looks very similar to the final artwork, but the surroundings have changed a lot !
Image Editing
I loaded the Weave into GIMP to do some editing.
This was the point where the idea to do ALL (or nearly all, at least) of the image manipulation before even giving the AI a taste of the artwork came to me.
I like to experiment with things, and after what I've been able to determine, I learn so much faster when, instead of following tutorials or guides, I just plunge right in and try to make something interesting !
As you can see, I was running a game on the side, while editing the image. I'll probably do a pluck for ATITD at the very end of the article, as I think it's awesome ;)
After loading it in, I created a copy of the image to work on, an went right into experimenting:
Waterpixels made a very interesting output, that I'm very glad with:
I then decided to see what I could get if I used the Kaleidoscope to create a background the centerpiece could rest on, using a copy of this Waterpixel'd image :
This made for an interesting play on making just the right parts transparent:
I like the overall vibe that's beginning to build here :)
I then played around a bit with Engrave and photocopy, finally ending up with a Mask where I made everything except the color black transparent:
I then used the GIMP plugin G'MIC-qt's filters to create some interesting variants, looking for one to pass to Deep Style (Yup, my signature force-the-poor-AI-to-make-me-art move is here !)
Deep Style... It's about time !
I ran the chosen image through deepgreamgenerator's Deep Style algorithm:
I choose the 3 last ones, which after the initial experiments I'd generated using the 0.95MP setting (I only get 3 of those images / hour on the deepdreamgenerator website. Normally it's 2, but I pay 15$/month to their patreon to get the right to 50% more images, and to support the creator of the site)
I then cheated by going back into GIMP for 2 filters.
(plz don't lynch me for cheating ;) )
The first one was the Combine Layers functionality of G'MIC-qt, to combine the 3 Deep Style images into one:
and the second one was the Canvas effect (I love the way it makes my art look. Nearly like actual old-fashioned art !)
and that's how I created this artwork !
So, what do you all think of the artwork ?
- Interesting ?
- too abstract ?
- You sure you're not part of an art-based mafia money laundering scheme ? <-- My colleagues always ask this when they ask if I've sold anything and I tell them I've sold a couple for 60-80$ since we last talked \o/
My less skeptical colleagues have been asking if I've thought about trying to sell for actual money too. I think I might have to set up shop on Redbubble at some point. The SuperRare artworks would still be the originals, published first. But it might be interesting to have the option to buy a shirt/mug/poster with some of my strange stuff on it XP
All my artwork is released under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Completely forgot to add in the bit about ATITD.
A Tale In The Desert is a MMORPG based near-entirely on crafting and competing in social games.
One of the main features is creating ever more complex machinery to do all manners of things from creating boards and bricks, through farming and ranching, all the way to mining, brewing and cross-breeding plants.
The other main feature i the Tests.
Tests are unlocked as the game goes on, and sometimes requires groups of players to come together to unlock them, or posess certain skills.
The tests vary from :
Oyster-Catcher, where you walk along the waterways and ponds of Egypt and search for pearl beds, trying to find the ones that will fit correctly in your necklace
Test of the Obelisk, where you must build the biggest of each type of obelisk, and have it remain so for a certain amount of time (the smallest obelisk requires 2 RL days). This one is very "social", as in there has to be a way to organize who gets to make the next one, or they'll keep making them bigger and bigger, interrupting each other's countdown constantly...
Each test pass augments your rank in that tests discipline, and at the end of a game (ATITD restarts every 15 months or so), if there are enough who've completed all tests in all the different disciplines, they get to help adapt/create a new test for the next telling of the tale in the desert !
Here's a trailer for the game :
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