AI Character Art

I've been toying with the idea of adding a separate page to my website for Running From Herself. The author website guru I subscribe to on YouTube states that every one of an author's books should have a separate page, but that's so unworkable, at least with Blogger. For me, it would mean adding eleven new pages. There's really no point. My new novel is the only book I care about right now (the others have had their chance).

The issue with a dedicated book page is, what content would fill it up? No, I don't have any maps. The book is contemporary fiction, not fantasy. The guru mentioned some other things, such as character art, and while I'm not a fan of turning my characters into cartoons, I decided to give AI a whirl, to see what it could come up with.

I'm not buying a subscription to any AI service; I'm not buying anything marketing-related anymore, so my only option was Microsoft's Copilot. If I've already launched the Edge browser, it's right there on the right-hand side of the screen (Firefox doesn't have an AI app).

It started out okay. Leah's character was far from perfect on the first try, but I gave Copilot some specific prompts for changes, and I ended up more or less satisfied with the outcome. Next came Caleb. Again, a few tweaks were needed, then I noticed the guitar he was playing looked more like a ukulele (in its proportions). I nicely asked Copilot to enlarge the guitar (I believe I typed, "to normal size" ~ I didn't add "idiot"), and the app remained genial and told me it was happy to comply. 

And that's when the whole process stopped. It seemed the image tool stopped working. But in the meantime, it offered, I could type in descriptions for additional characters and scenes. Fine. The idea was still fresh in my mind, so I plunged ahead. Now, occasionally, an image would pop up, but very inconsistently. And each image needed changes. That's when the tool would fail again.

It's now been sixteen hours and nope, still nonfunctional. Meanwhile, I'm awaiting at least eight new character creations along with the still unresolved corrections. I'm guessing I'll never get my results. All my requests might have broken the app.

For a free program, Copilot has its plusses and minuses. The big minus is, it has a worse memory than I do. How is that possible? It's so advanced! It's a magic machine! When I went back to it to check the image tool's functionality tonight, it told me, "Oh, sorry! Still not working! But let's recap what you're still waiting for." Then it gave me about four character names. It's right there in the same chat! You can't go back and reread? And this probably shouldn't be annoying, but it is: Copilot is way too agreeable and friendly. "Oh, you're right. Sorry!" Shut up; you're a machine.

And it keeps reiterating how interesting my characters are. Really? 

Then, instead of fixing what's broken, it wants to make mood boards and posters, as well as create scenes. Fine, whatever. I could take a look at them and assess, but can I please get my character art first? Besides, its tool couldn't make those new things, either.

It's all well and good that it wants to offer me additional content, but Copilot is so fixated on that. "Sure you don't want those?" The app is like the annoying assistant in the Seinfeld episode, who drives Jerry into a lake because she's too distracted by myopic details. 

On the plus side, all hypothetical since I don't think it'll ever happen, Copilot does offer good suggestions for image backdrops. For example, once I detailed the Paul character, it came back with:

His visual scene is shaping up with a sleek, professional backdrop—think glass-walled office, city skyline just visible behind, maybe even a sleek desk with subtle luxury touches like a leather notebook or high-end pen.

Yes! I agree! Add those things! (Oh, that's right; you can't.)

So, the imaginary scenarios Copilot suggests would be pretty great. It's just that it can't create them.

And keep in mind, these are really just animations, and clearly so. I had no problem experimenting to find out how good or bad they'd be; no one was forcing me to use them. I still balk at having my serious characters reduced to cartoons, but if people look at the images and don't have a problem with them, I, too, can accept their nature.  

I liked the idea of dictating my vision to a willing servant and getting back exactly what I wanted; no arguments, no disagreements. No pouting because I rejected its suggestions.

But now I think it is pouting. "You're asking too much of me! I'm tired! Leave me alone!"

Big f**king bot baby. 

I'm debating whether nagging will work. If I go back every couple of hours and ask how things are coming along, I may not convince it to start chugging out pictures, but I might get it to stop being so damned agreeable.