From the "X" Files

Making the Old New again!

Lacking some inspiration? Wondering what you might add to your portfolio neXt? Why not do what I've been doing and re-visit some of those 'old favorites', and give them some new life once again?

Something I have often said to myself while looking through my gallery pictures is, "One day I'm going to come back to this image and continue working on it". I don't know why it's taken me so long to actually do it. I suppose there have always been other things I want to create, but I've finally started to revisit some older images and give them new life and purpose.

It's been surprisingly satisfying playing with these images, and now that I've started, I don't see myself stopping any time soon! It's especially great when you're feeling uninspired or having an artistic block about what to make neXt. Just go through your gallery and pick out a piece you like, (or has bothered you), and off you go!

You can take older images that were created with (ahem) 'less advanced' AI versions and upgrade them with the newer software, or you can take an image into a totally new direction that you dream up, the choice is yours.

I haven't done many of these updates yet, but I'm sure I WILL. Here's a few eXamples that I've done so far...

I wasn't sure what I was going to create when I used my Bureaucracy picture as a visual prompt/source image, but I thought it was interesting, so gave it a go. The shapes around the head sort of reminded me of buildings, so I created a written prompt around that. Something along the lines of, "a man's face emerging from a busy city street scene". As you can see, the AI did a fine job of reimagining the image to the new specs I fed it. A totally new look and feel, yet seen side by side, it is obvious they are one and the same!

I always liked the original 'Blue', it was one of those images that just spoke to me, but there were things about it that really irritated me as well. For one thing, the boys were meant to be identical, but there were obvious differences in their appearance from one another. The original rendering had seriously messed up eyes, which I manually tried to fiX, but they were still 'off'. So again, I used the original as my visual prompt and made a completely new written prompt for the image. I ended up with more realistic boys that are much closer to identical, and allowed for colour to be added to the composition. The new image still speaks to me, but now I can hear it more clearly and with much less irritation involved!

I always thought this was a fun concept and image, but the old outdated AI version I used to create it with did a horrendous job at rendering the cats. Whenever I looked at the picture those cats just drove me bonkers! So now I have a new version to look at. The woman apparently got a facelift in the process, and she lost a cat, (oh wait, what's that hanging from her neck?!), but I still have the fun concept and look and feel of the original piece, and now I have half decent looking cats, too.

So there you have it, a few fun eXamples of what can be done when revisiting old images from your gallery. If you're like me and have been creating with AI for a while now, you're probably also like me and have HUNDREDS of old images that can be played with.

These are a few eXamples of re-rendered published pieces of mine. It just occurred to me that I also have a TON of unpublished pieces that I abandoned for some reason or another. I might have to go back in time and check out those as well.

One thing is certain, it's going to be very long time indeed before I ever become bored while creating with Artificial Intelligence!

Keep on keeping on!

"X"

May 30th, 2024