Alright, so I finally decided to jump into this whole “AI art” thing everyone’s been buzzing about. I’ve seen some pretty wild stuff online, and figured, “Why not give it a shot?” I’m no artist, but hey, that’s the point, right? The AI’s supposed to do the heavy lifting.
I started by grabbing this tool, you know, figuring I needed, like, the engine for this whole operation. Installed it, no big deal, pretty straightforward.
Getting Started
First, I had to download some models. These are the things that dictate the style and look. I grabbed ‘deliberate’ and ‘dream shaper’—no real reason, just sounded cool. Dropped them into the ‘models’ folder, easy peasy.
Then, the extensions. These give your AI extra abilities. I wanted to be able to control poses, so I got ‘controlnet’. There were like, a ton of other ones, but I figured I’d start small. I Copied and pasted the extension url into the install section, hit install and after a few seconds – boom – it showed as installed! Simple!
First Attempt: “jonesy the first”
Okay, time for the main event. My vision? My cat, Jonesy, but, like, regal. Like he’s ruling some kind of feline kingdom. Seemed easy enough.
I typed in something like “cat, king, crown, throne, majestic, royal” into the prompt box. I didn’t mess with any of the fancy settings yet, just hit “Generate” and crossed my fingers. I selected the ‘deliberate’ model from the dropdown, and away we go.
The result? Uh…well, let’s just say it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Jonesy looked less like a king and more like a… blob of orange fur with a weird, squished face. The “crown” was more like a golden blob, and the “throne” was just… a brown smudge. My first thought “What in the heck have I generated?”
But, then I thought to use the ‘dream shaper’ model, a bit more tweeking with the prompts and I hit Generate again!
Improvement!
Okay, not a total disaster. I switched to the ‘dream shaper’ model, and it helped. Slightly. Jonesy was still a bit wonky, but at least he resembled a cat this time. The crown was still pretty abstract, but hey, progress!
I played around with the prompts some more, adding things like “detailed fur,” “sharp eyes,” and “intricate crown.” I also started messing with the “Sampling Steps” setting, bumping it up a bit. No idea what it actually does, but higher numbers seemed to make things look… less blurry.
Using ControlNet
Then I remembered that ‘controlnet’ extension I installed. I figured if I could give the AI a basic pose, maybe it would have an easier time. I found a picture of a cat sitting upright, kind of like a sphinx. Loaded that into ControlNet, picked a “preprocessor” and a “model” (honestly, just guessed), and hit “Generate” again.
Whoa! Now we’re talking! Jonesy actually looked like he was posing for a royal portrait. He still had a bit of a derpy expression, but the overall composition was way better. The crown was starting to look like a crown, and the throne was actually recognizable as a chair-like thing.
Tweaking and Iterating
From there, it was just a lot of back-and-forth. I kept tweaking the prompts, adjusting the settings in ControlNet, and generating image after image. Some were hilarious failures, some were surprisingly good, and most were somewhere in between.
I learned that the “CFG Scale” setting seems to control how closely the AI sticks to your prompts. Higher numbers mean it tries harder, but it can also lead to some… interesting results. I found a sweet spot around 7 or 8.
I also discovered the “Restore Faces” option, which, unsurprisingly, helps make faces look less… terrifying. That was a lifesaver.
Final Result
After a couple of hours of messing around, I finally got something I was pretty happy with. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely Jonesy, and he definitely looks like he’s in charge. He’s got a crown, a throne (of sorts), and a reasonably regal expression. The AI nailed the pose, the lighting, and the details. It’s still a bit rough around the edges, but I got it to a point I’m ready to share!
So, yeah, that’s my first adventure into AI art. It was frustrating, confusing, and surprisingly addictive. I’m definitely going to keep playing with it, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll actually be able to create something truly majestic. But for now, I’m pretty proud of my slightly-derpy-but-still-regal Jonesy.
