Create Beautiful Pieces of AI Art on NightCafe: Artist Spotlight with AI Creative u/Geroani
Known as one of the top AI artists in the NightCafe community, u/Geroani makes generating AI art look easy. He’s one of the busiest creators on our website with over 13,000 AI artworks!
We had the (lucky) chance of catching up with him and asking some spicy questions about things like the future of AI art, his favorite modifiers to use to write beautiful prompts, and some sweet tips for newbie crypto artists just starting out on NightCafe Studio. Keep reading to see what he has to say!
NC: Do you use start images? If so, what are your requirements for a good start image?
Geroani: I do for a vast majority of my creations, and I have only used my own AI-generated creations as start images (and recently some of my low-level drawings and paintings). A good start image differs depending on what method you are using: Artistic or Coherent.
For Artistic, don't think too much about the colour of the start image, you can modify this in your prompts. To me the outline of the shapes in the start image and overall structure is much more important. You can either attempt to build upon the theme that is in the start image you are using, or go for something completely different while taking the outlines into account.
Envision a completely different scenario with roughly the same structure; you can turn a flaming forest into a beautiful snowy taiga with colourful wisps circling the trees, or even add to the structure and turn it into a cavern with lots of stalagmites or crystal shards. What is more difficult is turning a cave into an open field, or an ocean view.
One of my techniques is to turn a start image with very strong (or difficult to remove lines or patterns) into a pure abstract style creation. This worked best in removing some of those hard lines and creating some nice colours. You can use that as a more versatile start image, using its completely different structure and colours as inspiration for what you should create with it next.
For Coherent, the colours of the start image are much more important as well as the textures. The outline is not as important as it is in Artistic. It has an effect still, but to a much lesser degree. The biggest thing to watch out for are extremely bright whites in the start image. If you're wanting something darker in colour you don't want to use a start image that has even a small bit of blinding white.
Next, textures are likely to carry through from your start image, but this can be mitigated by setting your prompt weight to maximum. Alternatively if you like the start image's textures and general structure, use a lower prompt influence weight. Because of the texture issue I think resolution and clarity is more important in a Coherent start image than an Artistic one. And keeping all of that in mind, try to think of a scene which can make appropriate use of the colours and/or textures in the start image.
NC: Pick one: Coherent or artistic creation setting??? Why?
Geroani: Coherent. My favourite thing about Coherent is its ability to seamlessly meld two or more artist styles into something truly unique on its own. With Artistic, artist modifiers were clear and easily identifiable. But you have the potential to make something where very few could guess what artist's styles are being used as modifiers. It can take a lot of practice getting a result like this, however. Experimenting with different modifier weights is most important.
NC: What role do you think AI art has in society?
Geroani: [AI art] allows artists to enhance their works of art in ways that may be beyond their current ability, and provides an easy way for those not skilled in art to experience what it is like to create works they thought they could never have the ability to create before, to share with friends and others.
It is also a new way to bring more interest into the world of art. Those that get invested can discover what their favourite art styles are, and that can lead to them wanting to rely less on AI and learn how to make their own physical (or digital) creations in a style unique to them.
“[AI art] allows artists to enhance their works of art in ways that may be beyond their current ability, and provides an easy way for those not skilled in art to experience what it is like to create works they thought they could never have the ability to create before…”
NC: What got you started as an artist on NightCafe?
Geroani: It was purely on a whim. I was browsing Reddit and saw a creation from NightCafe posted. Seeing an AI’s interpretation of just a simple word intrigued me. At the time I did not see this as something I could potentially make some beautiful artwork with (that would later change). I was only interested in seeing more interpretations of obscure or made-up words and simple phrases, even if they turned out messy. Even the failed creations were interesting to me and I have still kept them public in case others were interested in seeing them as well.
NC: What are some of your favorite modifiers to use in your text prompts? Why?
Geroani: I'm a bit protective of the modifiers I have discovered on my own. I've spent a good amount of credits (bought with money) and days of non-stop research testing hundreds of modifiers to see which ones were accurately depicted, and cutting out the ones the AI didn't recognize or struggled with. That's one of the reasons why I keep mine hidden, another being that I've seen other creator's styles being copied to oblivion once they got popular, resulting in it becoming a bit stale (hope you understand my worries and reasoning). There are others making big lists of modifier comparisons for those that wish for a quicker way to discover new ones.
The Brain of Cthulhu
…One [modifier] that I think is very overlooked is "CGSociety". It's a hard one to describe, but maybe try to think of a cross between CryEngine and Artstation. It can really clean up the appearance of more realistic styles with architecture or landscapes, while still maintaining a nice artistic appearance (not too realistic like CryEngine can be sometimes). It is incredibly consistent as well and results in clear, smoother textures and outlines.
Another one that I love to use is simply "naïve art". Just like one of my favourite art movements, this modifier comes with imperfections. Do not expect anatomically correct animals or creatures with this. I feel it adds charming colour and a simplistic cutesy art style with rough edges, which I think makes it feel more organic as well.
NC: What inspires your work most?
Geroani: There are a few things. Firstly, my love for naïve art stems from Henri Rousseau being one of my favourite artists ever since I was in school. I related to his love for nature and jungle themes, and I thought his art style was much more charming than ones that try to depict more realism.
Secondly, my love for surrealism and pixel art styles comes from one of my favourite video games, Yume Nikki.
Lastly, from my interest in abstracts (that is much more recent). During one of my [NightCafe] experiments, expecting nothing more than a very basic Kandinsky-style creation with nothing but vague shapes and lines, [but] instead got a winged figure that was very clearly wearing a white mask and had two eyes (one hidden, one visible), long hair, [and was] seemingly flying above the ocean. I was astonished at what I got. It is still one of my favourite creations, and made me realize there can be much more to abstract art than I thought.
NC: Do you have a background in art?
Geroani: No. NightCafé is pretty much my first serious venture into the world of art. I had -100 confidence in my ability to make something beautiful to share with others, and instead focused on cooking.
NC: Are there any tips or tricks you’d like to give artists just starting out on Nightcafe?
Geroani: Go beyond the default modifiers given to you on NightCafe.
If you ever get a creation that is almost good enough but not quite, or something that you see a lot of potential in and decide to improve it, pay extremely close attention to how your [prompt] changes either improve or worsen your next creations, and experiment. These experiments provide you with the most evidence with what you are doing right or wrong, and are much more impactful at improving your future works compared to getting a fancy new modifier to use from someone. It can change your approach entirely.
And, something that is more difficult to do, try to remember what modifiers appear to work best for you and which ones just seem to result in a disappointing creation. It's something you'll have to do more in the back of your mind because you're likely to be using multiple modifiers most of the time.
We hope this article was as fun to read for you as it was for us to put together. We also owe a huge thank you to u/Geroani for taking the time to share this invaluable information with us! It’s going to be a huge help to so many up and coming AI artists out there.
If you would like to see more of u/Geroani’s work, you can find his Twitter here, Instagram here, and NightCafe Studio profile here.
If you haven’t already checked out our other Artist Spotlight’s on the NightCafe Studio blog you’ll definitely want to now. We’ve talked to other top AI artists creating on NightCafe such as u/zenElan, u/robot9000, and u/Jazzygirl111. Click here to find them on the blog.
Thanks for reading, we hope you return for our next Artist Spotlight. Until then, happy creating!