My Top 10 AI Images of 2023 - - - - - - - - - - - #5 Mycol

Comics were a huge part of my childhood and a big reason why I became an artist. As a teen, I drifted away from them. But post-college, writers like Frank Miller with "Dark Knight," Neil Gaiman with "Sandman," and especially Alan Moore with "Watchmen," "Miracleman," "Swamp Thing," and more, pulled me back in.

Alan Moore's run on "Swamp Thing" is a standout in my opinion. He took a character I loved and flipped its whole history in just one issue. It was groundbreaking. It felt like Moore was shaking me, saying, "Think you know Swamp Thing? Think again!" 

A character I dreamt up decades ago, finally appears as I envisioned
Mycology: the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi

Back then, I often contemplated the stories I would create if I were a comic book writer. Reflecting on Swamp Thing, Moore's distinctive twist opened up new avenues of creativity. This led to the conception of characters who could seamlessly integrate into that universe. Among them was Mycol – akin to Swamp Thing, but with a twist. While Swamp Thing represented the "Green" of plant life, Mycol personified the "Gray" of the fungal domain, a completely different realm. Spoiler: Mycol is the offspring of Swamp Thing and Abigail Arcane, unknowingly conceived through the sinister machinations of Anton Arcane.

This story lingered in my mind, yet it remained largely unexplored until the advent of AI image generation decades later. I am quite fond of how the Mycol image materialized. It closely aligns with my vision for the character, though it still lacks some additional fungal elements that I envision within him.

AI Fun: Fantastic Four

One of the things I enjoy about using AI to generate images is the challenge of pushing it to its limits. Just 1 year ago, the images made from AI looked like images created by a computer. A terrible, low-memory computer. We're talkin' slightly better than a Commodore 64. But that's all changed now. Those limitations are fading fast. Many odd, weird, and disturbing images are still being made, but that is usually not the technology's fault. We have to get better at communicating with the AI technology.

Playing around, I decided to see what I could create using imagination, known characters, and pushing the reality level as far as I could. My subject: The Fantastic Four.

I started with Sue Storm. Why? She's the heart, commited, powerful, and a very sexy female hero, which, let's face it -- creating sultry women is generally 80% of what image generators are used for. It only made sense that Sue Storm would be the easiest of the four since she was probably the most normal-looking "person" of the group - I'll explain as each character is presented.

In the classic plastic/aura/ghost style often seen in comics/animation, Sue Storm was a challenge to make invisible. So I opted to show her more impressive power: forces fields.

It could be better. I would have liked all force fields to be circular. I also took the opportunity to hide her poorly generated left hand with another forcefield bubble. The explosions inside each forcefield bubble had to be generated separately. And. of course, the Circle 4 logo was dropped in Photoshop to give it proper lighting. (Assuming everyone knows type and logos are still a nightmare in AI as of this writing.)
Overall, I loved the dynamic power in this image. The suit, though unique, still fits the current trends of astro/space modern outerwear the characters usually wear today.

Next was the Thing. No doubt he is the fan favorite of the group. But what a task to generate an orange rock man with super strength.
First, it could not understand the rocky pattern of Ben's skin. Often, it looked like waffled crosshatch lines. I finally got to the closest I could with a very dynamic, powerful background:

In this image was the power and rage I wanted. There is so much going on in this image. AI often uses the colors/materials written in a prompt... EVERYWHERE. Mention "golden," and your entire image usually has a golden hue or gold items in the background. But in this case, the stone behind The Thing seems similar to his skin. It took his skin description and added it to the environment. But I like the overall look and feel.
One disappointment, I couldn't create his iconic brow. AI fights against making items it considers not "normal" (aka "popular" or "beautiful.")

The next challenge was The Human Torch, a man on fire, Johny Storm. He had to be engulfed in flames yet seen as a healthy, powerful young man. He also had to be flying. Most test images had the person on fire screaming because they were on fire.

Getting a burning man to properly float in the air is harder than you'd think. If you prompt Superman, AI usually knows how to place the Man of Steel in the air. Again, test images usually made Johnny look like he was falling -- and the lack of a fire trail didn't help sell the flight movement. So, in this image, I opted to have him float in place, leaving devastatingly scorched areas all around him.

Finally, the boss and the hardest one to create via AI: Mr. Fantastic Reed Richards. The challenge here was, again, forcing the AI to do something it is often dictated not to do: stretch and elongate body parts. Anyone who has tried generating images knows you push the prompt too much or confuse your meaning -- you get really deformed bodies, duped clone heads, and bizarre extremities. This has been corrected so often that now when I want deformed and oblong details, it is not easy to achieve. (At least at the time of this writing.)

I had to coax each area of his body to stretch, but it would only do this for a small portion of the image at a time. So, having the left-hand fingers stretch off the frame made sense. I thinned out the legs, making them appear longer than usual. The right hand is distorted, reaching for a power seed of the ultimate nullifier. I had intended on his left-hand fingers stretching over his head in the distance, but that wasn't in the cards with ol' AI.

And that-- that was my attempt at doing AI Fantastic Four.
Quite the challenge, as you can see several other users' examples below attempting to do the famous team. It's funny how so many of these images have The Thing on fire, two females, or one missing member. The last image is my favorite. It looks like a low-budget BBC sitcom from the '70s. Co-starring a "Jenny" Storm and what looks to be an overly-mutated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

I doubt if I could generate two of these characters into one image -- never mind having all four together. Another challenge for another day.