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The Artist Spotlight is your inside look into the influences, collaborations and prompts that drive the NightCafe community.

We catch up with some of our most original creators to find what inspires them, who their favorite creators are, and how they use image generator algorithms as part of their work.

NC: WHAT INFLUENCES YOUR WORK?

Many (many) years ago, I read an interview in Rolling Stone with a musician called Syd Straw, who said: “Learn to create keeping one ear to the ground, and the other to the sky.”

I took this as meaning stay aware of and observe what’s going on around you; the mundane things of life, as well as what other artists, other people, are doing. But also remain open to the more esoteric sources of airy, ethereal influence, ideas which just come to you, seemingly from nowhere.

I hadn’t heard of her then, and I haven’t heard of her since, but this has remained a guiding principle for me, which serves to reinforce it quite nicely, I think!

NC: MOST UNDERRATED ARTIST ON NIGHTCAFE?

That would be Trusty (u/trust), who does the most amazingly beautiful, innovative work and also - very importantly, for me - keeps all his prompts open for others to share and learn from.

He’s also keen to explore prompts he picks up from others - even “girly” ones like “fashion women” with yarn balls and flowers in their hair, or a certain thing I was doing with patchwork quilting recently.

NC: ANY TIPS FOR PROMPT WRITING?

Experiment. Try things, even if they look ridiculous - especially if they look ridiculous!

One of the best modifiers I’ve come up with is ‘by artist “mushypeasart”’. What the hell does that mean? Who knows, but when the AI sees it, it does wonderful things, so we don’t argue with that. 

Never assume. You can never be sure what it’s going to do this time when it’s combined with everything else. Everything matters in a prompt. That’s a really hard thing to get your head around, I think.

For me, letting go of writing in ‘proper’ English is an ongoing battle. But sometimes not putting a space after a comma can make all the difference in an especially stubborn prompt.

Also, make sure to pull apart every prompt you come across to see what makes it tick.

NC: WHAT LED YOU TO USING NIGHTCAFE?

I read an article on the best places to try AI art, with NightCafe being one of them.

I was already interested in finding out more about what I’d picked up about AI art here and there, but I’d been under the impression that it was still really experimental.

The first couple of sites this article recommended kinda reinforced that view, but I kept going until I tried NightCafe…and the rest is history!

NC: WHAT KEEPS YOU COMING BACK TO NIGHTCAFE?

From the moment I ran my first prompt - “fish on bicycles”, using the “post-impressionist” preset - I knew I was hooked.

Not just on AI art as a concept, but on NightCafe specifically as a user-friendly, intuitive space, with so many options to explore that I’ve barely scratched the surface yet.

I joined the NightCafe AI Art Facebook group almost immediately, and have spent most of my time on one or other since!

The community - both in the group and on the site itself - is supportive and welcoming, and fosters a wonderful environment for learning about this incredibly exciting new artistic medium.

For me, it’s also opened up a portal into a world which I’d thought was closed to me for good. Without going into gory details, a few years ago, arthritis and other chronic pain issues meant I had to stop doing all the arty-crafty things I’d loved doing all my life.

Discovering AI art, and a place in NightCafe where I can explore it to my heart’s content, has been literally life-changing.