Tag: technology

Oh yeah, this is apt to be one of those long rambling and hopefully humors posts. So grab your favorite goodies and settle in for a bit.

Every picture you are about to see in this post is AI generated through Canva. I have been working on this for a few days now and I really want to share some of these results with you AND get your feedback.

As always, let’s start with this story’s backstory.

I’ve used the free version of Canva for years and I love it. I had no idea I was like, I dunno, ‘racking up points’ with their AI thing all this time until I got brave enough to click the icon (that I knew was mostly associated with the Pro Version) and start farting around for a Summerween sale. At the end of that I had made and posted these….

I don’t know about you but I think they’re kind of cute.

I wasn’t happy with my Onya’s Apothecary Banner so I spent a few more of the tokens I’d racked up over the years and came up with a few things but settled on….

For purposes of this site I had to change it a bit to

So the text doesn’t get cut off when I use it as ‘featured image’ on the Onya’s Apothecary section of this site.

I sat back all happy and pleased with myself that I had tackled and learned Something New. I always like to Learn New Things…it means I’m not dead yet. I mean, I created these out of literally nothing at all and I made all those new graphics for the available products over in Onya’s Apothecary and I felt I’d really stepped things up.

So there I am all warm and fuzzy over the whole thing when, from out of nowhere, I hear this deep sigh in my head. It immediately caught my attention and I knew it was just by the rush of air I heard. So, in my head, of course, I only talk to him out loud if I’m positive no one is around, I asked:

“Ah, what’s wrong?”

All I got back was another mournful sigh and I swear I could see him slowly shaking his head very dejectedly.

“Um, problems?”

Silence.

I thought, Oh crap, I’m in it deep for some reason.

“Hey, dude, what’s up?”

Finally I got back an answer that was, well, I understood it, but he could have said it in a more, um, ‘adult’ tone. What I got was:

Well, you’ve done all this work for your candles and things, and it’s wonderful, very proud, but, well, you know…nothing for me?

Now, in my own defense, I had been plotting and scheming how to use this AI Thing with the book covers AND I had made him at least two TikTok videos. Oi! TikTok! Me. WTF?

I made those before I saw other, much better, ones. I already knew I had to up my game. I was just stuck on the How of it all. What got me moving were the following words in my head

This could be your only chance to SEE us. Not in your head. On the screen. Your ONLY chance to have others SEE us.

Let’s face it, no one is going to make a movie out of “The Heart of War”, they damn well should! But they won’t. For the last…ten years?….I’ve struggled with finding/creating/altering images that would fit the series so people could SEE it. Even though I have a rather sizeable collection of images of One Certain Gentleman, I can’t use them.

Excuse me?

Shut up.

Anyway, I had 23 tokens left on Canva when I sat down looking at the blank AI box thinking; Does this thing even know who Ares is?

I typed in; Ares God of War. It spit back 4 images. The closest of which to my mind is

I tried to think of one single image or scene from “The Heart of War” that I’d want to see and that AI might think was fairly easy to create. I typed in; Ares God of War on his Throne of Bones. It gave me 4 images. The closest of which, to my mind, is

I like it. I don’t like it. If I go with that style, I have to stay with it. Not there’s anything wrong with it for those who love it and I do. I’ve just always wanted it to be REAL and it will NEVER actually BE REAL because One Certain Gentleman is no longer with us. So, I have to dive deep.

You never see Ares in this type of outfit in “The Heart of War” so I had to ditch that. Somehow. It took me forever to see the little tiny box that comes up under the images you click to edit that asks you what you want to change!

Suddenly I realized, I had to learn how to actually communicate with this thing. So weird. I discovered this AI Thing certainly did know the Greek Gods. Whenever I typed in a name it spit back an image based on a statue or painting. The ONLY Greek God I was able to keep by name and not slip into the Fantasy Genre was Ares, that’s all. I didn’t even have type ‘God of War’.

As I typed in more and more refinements…that can be damn tricky! The images faded away from the Fantasy Art genre to something more realistic. Somethings that I swear are based on One Certain Gentleman and I swear that because I have that large collection of images and I can match them one to one as far the pose and most especially the jawline and cheekbones are concerned.

I moved a bit and tried to create images for Ares and Alena. Refinement by refinement these are the best ones I got back.

After several attempts, I was able to do this nice Before and After a ton of refinement.

Let’s check out a few more of these blunders

When it comes to Alena by herself, I’m not getting much of anything that I like so far. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.

I love both of those but I think the one on the left is my favorite.

Yes, I was able to refine Ares a bit

At least he has the right number of legs and fingers. I made Zeus that had 14 fingers! 7 on each hand!

I imagine that, by this time, you can guess that I finally had to go in for my Free Trial of Canva Pro as I was out of free tokens. I’ll cancel it ASAP but right now there are so many other characters.

Do you want to play Guess Who? Or would you like me to tell you?

Happily, I nailed three of the above and didn’t go any further with them. Two others I have back-ups for. I realize at least two are missing. Maybe I’ll get to them soon but right now we’re stumbling all the hell over Raven.

You have no idea how difficult it is to get that white stripe in his hair. I’m learning a new language called AI-ese. I tried the words ‘patch’, ‘swath’, ‘stripe’, ‘line’. I kept getting the sides of his head shaved and he was wearing war paint. Trying to put a spear in his hand….oh my! The tip is sticking out from behind his shoulder, as it should be, but instead of just hanging down behind him there’s a pole in his hand. Weird.

Getting him as a boy is even harder. Eventually, no matter what I type, the AI Thing starts spitting out the same images over and over. Like, the same, I dunno, maybe 7 basic images. Often when I settle on an “original image” that I like and try to refine it, I get a totally different image back.

Yes, I know, we’re back in Fantasy Art again but, again, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get out of it for this. And, YES, I do know that Raven isn’t in “The Heart of War” he makes his appearance in “Child of War-A God is Born”, I’m aware, thank you. But, in for penny in for a pound, and he’s a huge part of everything from here on out. So…might as well.

And, yep, those pictures are numbered. I am definitely asking for your opinion here. Which Ravens do you like best?

We’ve gone from trying to pull all of these pieces together to make one of those fancy TikTok videos for “The Heart of War” to striving more for a mini-movie. Or maybe a sort of Visual Audio Book or something. It’s a work in progress. I figure if I can get a good lot of graphics that represent the characters then I can add in AI graphics that represent the surroundings or even the goings-on in different scenes. Yes, I know that’s very ambitious of me. Truly just Above and Beyond.

Anyway, when it comes to “The Heart of War” (and the whole Of War series) now that I have a tool like this, I want to show you my Friends here, the ones you’ve been reading about. Or at least the closest approximation of my vision of them as I can get. I’d like to know yours if your so inclined. Do the above depictions look anything like the characters you’ve envisioned in your head? If you have any positive suggestions, please let me know, especially if they’re on How To Talk to this AI Thing.