Website Review: Ideogram.ai

I recently found this free AI generator called Ideogram.ai. What makes Ideogram.ai unique? It handles text better than any other AI generator out there right now. It is still in its infant stage but creates images with the words you prompt (well, mainly.) Check the samples below:

As seen in the samples, it can create phrases, alter font styles, and mimic styles you refer to in your prompt. It can even design the type to look like the item you are describing:

Now, its flaws are usually related to space and image size. Use large words that can't fit properly into the area you requested, and you might see letters missing from that word. Like anything with AI, practicing to see what is understood and what causes errors will help you achieve the visual goals you set in your prompts.

Currently, the website is free. There is a timer between prompting that stops people from abusing the system with multi-requests -- so you do have to wait sometimes to submit your prompts. Like most AI generators based on Stable Difusion, you get 4 sample images per prompt. You can select the images you like and download them or share them with others.

I highly recommend you give Ideogram.ai a try. Link: https://ideogram.ai/

Sketch to Drawing - Introducing Promeai.com

Note: Links will open to a new page.

AI services I'll be sharing discoveries in AI, such as this free-to-use website Promeai.

It features several AI services, but for now I'm focusing on one in particular: Sketch Rendering.
Sketch Rendering is taking a sketch -- penciled, inked, or doodled image, and changing it into a 3D, realistic, or fully rendered image based on your drawing and text prompts. It still needs to be highly tuned. There is much to improve, and getting what you want is hard. That being said, the results are fascinating, and I can see great potential in AI doing this in the future.

Below is an inked sketch of a basket design I did years ago. It has enough detail to let the AI do its thing. I'm going to use my text description as follows: "(Yellow Moon Character with indent craters) (Easter basket) (red rocketship attached to a blue rope handle) (Plain white background)"
Note I use parentheses to group related words into phrases. On some websites, this helps the AI understand better.

I could generate the following images by importing this image and typing the prompt. The coloring and detailing are still random, even though I specified what colors should be used. Again, this technology is in its infant stage, and there is much to improve. But the results of 2D to 3D are quite amazing, especially considering the mere seconds it takes to generate such images.

Bear in mind I did prompt the same sketch quite a few times (about ten times, generating about 30 images), and these three were what I consider to be the best of the bunch.

The most frustrating thing about using AI is control. There are SO MANY factors to consider.
You must practice your typing descriptions, learn the way AI thinks, and use other AI tools to work around issues that occur.

So, give the website a try. It's free. It's fun. There are many other tools to experiment with there. It could be better, but it is free.
Here's the direct link: www.promeai.com/

Hello Again . . . and what's this AI stuff all about?

It's been awhile. Not much creativity when dealing with a pandemic, parents hosptialized and father passing away; along with moving to a new state, work issues and dealing with constantly having to repair and replace everything lately.
Yea, it's been alot.
I figure now is a great time to get back into blogging, especially with AI altering the entire business.
It's a new tool.
It's not going away.
It will greatly improve my creative process, and I thought it would be a gpd subject to focus on here.
So, let's see where this goes.
(And let's see if I'm up to blogging again and sharing thoughts, concepts and techniques I used everyday.)

Baby New Year 2023

Getting ready to kick in the New Year! 🎉

I've been doing variations of this image every couple of years. Each time, a slightly different look.

Kickin in the new year!!!

UPDATE C-BOT: The Smart Bot (supporting Picture Book character)

UPDATE: Color! (Originally published on Saturday, January 26, 2019)

It's been quite a long time since I stepped foot in this blog. 
Not only was the pandemic affecting everything, but this year has also been one family emergency after another. We are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, but still have a way to go.

Anyway, this is my attempt to slowly get back into this blog.

Inktober is approaching, I hope I can do some sketches during the month, but I'm not expecting to have much spare time.

The digitally colored version of the C-Bot, redrawn on an iPad Pro using Procreate

Today's quick sketch warm up. Possible support character for a fun picture book with robots. You can see the protagonist to the story here.

Original Inked Sketch of C-Bot using a Tombow brush pen

#Inktober2020 Day04 RADIO

With the prompt word "Radio", I instantly thought of the old Captain Marvel/Shazam villain, Mr. Mind. He definitely was one of the weirdest characters I remember reading as a child.

#Inktober2020 Day 03 BULKY

Good ol' King Mudsok.
Reposting an old favorite character from my story idea about the underground people,
A fair and kind-hearted leader, though one who would definitely dislike being labeled as BULKY.

#Scrawloween2020 Day03: WEREWOLF

#Scrawloween Day 3: WEREWOLF
This year for Inktober, I'm also following The Cartoon Art Museum prompt list jumping around the two lists, pulling and revising some old stuff, and of course, creating new illustrations.

#Inktober2020 Day02: WISP

#Inktober2020 Day 2: WISP
Created with Procreate on an iPad Pro.

#Inktober2020 Day02: WISP 

#Inktober2020 Day01: Cat

Well, October is here already. That means I'm about to attempt to do the month-long challenge known as Inktober for the 6th year.

This year, a slightly different approach; I'll be doing new character designs and using the prompt list of words from The Cartoon Art Museum's Scrawl-O-Ween for inspiration. (See the prompt list way down below.) 

Color version of this year's first #inktober image

The Inked version of the Day 01 image for the prompt word: Cat

The original pencil sketch of the character

2020 Prompt list for Scrawl-o-ween

B-bot: Developing another support character

This robot is a supporting character for my story, D-Bot. In the story, the main character often wishes it was another robot, B-Bot being one of them. B-Bot is a Builder Bot, hence the powerful arms.

A better color comp of one of the builder bots in D-Bot

The original color comp, which I found was too bright and McDonalds-ish

The original concept pencil sketch of B-Bot

Arrrggghhh It's Another Quick Sketch Video: Monster Dance

UPDATE: Daily Quick Sketch: Lil' Squire

In the past year, I rewrote my picture book story The Squire. At first, it was going to be a story about a little girl playing strong roles often portrayed by male characters. Then I rewrote the story to also include a stronger message about equality. That's where the twins' idea came into play. After all, twins should be pretty equal, right?

Adding more humor to the main characters of THE SQUIRE

The story became more of a dialogue between the twins. More humor was put into the characters reacting off each other. Their arguments intensified; hopefully in a seemingly funny way. I also found an ending that I feel fits perfectly with humor and hitting the key message of the story.

The original pencil sketch of Erica and Oliver, including their lovable sheepdog, Max

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Below was originally posted on 1-28-13

Been a while since I posted a daily sketch.  This one is a little girl dressed in a knight's suit of armor. I was just testing out the stylus controls again, making adjustments to the pen line.  I thought of making a strong little girl with a playful imagination of adventure and action. I came up with this quick little sketch which I immediately named "Lil' Squire."

#Mermay2020 fast approaching - aka Mer-Kat

Last year I dabbled with a character for #MerMay2019, the annual month-long mermaid illustration event on the Internet. If you use Instagram or Twitter, I'm sure you will notice a large number of mermaid illustrations being posted during May.

Quick color comp of Mer-Kat "In an Octopus's Garden"

Other Links for Mer-Kat:
https://arrrggghhhink.blogspot.com/2019/05/arrrggghhh-its-another-quick-sketch.html
https://arrrggghhhink.blogspot.com/2019/05/more-mermay-with-mer-kat.html
Oh, and the original pencils and ink images of this image are two posts below.

D-Bot: Developing a Main Character for a Picture Book II

Hard to believe it's been about two years since I created this story and character while doing jury duty. The long hours waiting was the perfect environment for me to daydream this picture book story.

Character study of D-bot: focusing facial expressions

I have submitted the story many times and have received many rejections. Many just say that they don't see a market for it. Others have said they didn't like or "get" that each robot is named with a letter. I still think it is a fun story about self-worth.

Original pencil sketches of D-Bot heads

I'm hoping the main reason for the rejections is that I haven't had the time to sketch a dummy for this picture book. So I go back every once in a while. Sketching the characters. Fine-tuning. Experimenting. Learning.

Maybe one day, D-Bot. Maybe . . .