Picture from a graphic novel in making
“The girl with a light inside” is just one picture from a graphic novel I’m working on in Mid Journey. Currently, I’m only posting one picture because I don’t want to give up too much info about the story, but I think this one can stand alone outside the story and don’t give away too much information about it.
But I will post more as the story evolves and the struggle to make a graphic novel in any AI (I have tried them all) if you have a clear idea of how you want it to look.
But here is what I have learned so far.
I’ve seen short stories people have been making, and I have made about 10.000 pics. just in Mid Journey, not counting other IA, cos I find Mid Journey the best for what I’m doing and want to do, but also to learn and understand AI, and the possibility of Mid Journey is about 5-6.000 of those pics.
I can say that AI is horrible if you have a clear picture in your mind of what you want it to look like, and I would have finished the story doing it my old way. However, I have published graphic story books and short stories in magazines, so I’m not new to making graphic stories; so I think I can say that I can judge at least AI when you want to make a picture story in any AI.
One reason is that you can’t tell the AI how to pos and light the character in each frame to your liking. Plus, the main problem is that the AI can’t know what your character looks like, so it usually takes about +/- 200 pics just to get the character right; that’s a hell of a time if you are working in /relax mode and making 10.000 pics in /fast mode cost a hell of a lot of money and I have already pay way to much for /fast mode + /private mode.
I’m not saying AI is not a good tool, just that it’s not a tool for all professional making. Because Mid Journey is on Discord, and you can see everything others are doing, I have learned to spot the pro-people fast, and it looks like they all have a hard time getting the pics. that they want, but not all; some get it right away and are in a great position. I have also noticed that the AI is a perfect tool for professional jobs for folks, mainly illustrators, who have a personal style that the AI can easily handle. But if your style is something the AI has a hard time copying or can’t do, AI is not for you.
But most of the others, almost everyone, leaves or pay extra and get into /private mode, so I can’t know how many really are using it professionally. I pay extra for /prived mode so others can’t see what I’m working on, plus get out of the clutter of the stream where everybody ar and you quickly lose your pictures in the chaos in the stream, but in /private mode, the stream is only my pics. So I can work, especially when I may have to make 200 pics. getting the one I want/need for the story, and usually, a compromise will be needed and a PhotoShop work to get it right. And about PhotoShop, I may most likly have to spend just as much time in PhotoShop correcting the AI pics. as it will take me to make them.
But I have had to make many compromises, and in about 50% of cases, the AI hasn’t been able to make the pic I need/want, so I have had to change the layout and building of that specific scene so I don’t have to change the script.
But on the other hand, I’m usually happy with the additional 50%, and sometimes I get pictures that make me change my mind about the layout and even small changes in the story, not the main story, but conversations and small things like that, but not the main story.
But I’m learning, and if I do this again, to try to make a graphic novel or short graphic story in AI, I will write the script otherwise. Keep it more open, and don’t try to stick to a strict storyboard, because then it will take ages to make it, and then it’s wiser to just drow it the old way.
But on the other hand, you can, I think, see the style of this one picture I’m posting, that I’m pushing the limit of digital drawing to a heavy photographic look, and that, of course, is the main reason it’s so hard to make. So, by hand/PhotoShop, I would never, I think, be able to make this story whit that look (like it hopefully will look like if I can finish it) any other way except using AI, even tho it is taking a hell of a time.
Originally posted on HIVE in the Community AI Art Information