From Goldsmith to AI Storyteller: Meet Jenny, This Month's NightCafe Artist Spotlight
Meet Jenny: @Velvetmoss on NightCafe, known around the community as LilacVenom, and the artist you voted as Community Favorite of NightCafe Select Edition 1. She's also this month's NightCafe Artist Spotlight.
Her story, Sir Dracula & Creepy Eyeball, followed one very clueless vampire searching for his missing friend, and it collected 1,314 votes. You loved the quirky storytelling, and the fun detail tucked into every image: the funny hidden messages, and the hunt for Creepy Eyeball himself.
Before NightCafe, Jenny spent more than 15 years as a goldsmith, working the bench among gemstones and precious metals. Today, from her home in Iowa, she builds dragons out of pearls, white jaguars submerged in crystal water and fae creatures stepping through hidden portals. Away from the screen, she hunts rocks and fossils (it started with polishing stones with her dad) and builds with Lego. She describes herself as "an artist, a goldsmith, a lover of animals as well as nature, and an advocate for those with disabilities."
On NightCafe, she's a PRO member with 6,100+ followers and 540,000+ likes, creating here since August 2024.
This month we're partnering with Jenny to celebrate her art with:
- 🎃 Daily Challenge Creator Takeover: Friday 9 October, in time for spooky season. Join the Daily Challenge
- 📖 Community Prompt Guide: landing next week, with the tips and tricks behind her Creepy Eyeball story and her Community Favorite win
We asked Jenny about her origin story, her influences, her Daily Challenge secret and the advice she'd give a brand-new artist. Here's the NightCafe Artist Spotlight in her own words.
NightCafe Artist Spotlight: How a Goldsmith Found NightCafe
"Boop 💞," one of Jenny's early NightCafe creations, made with Imagen 3.0 Fast in August 2024.
When holding a pencil for long stretches became painful, Jenny went looking for another way to bring her stories to life.
"I had this cute idea for a kids story and wanted to illustrate my idea for fun. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted it to look like though or how I would go about making it a reality. Especially since I was having issues with my hands because of the myotonia I have. I remembered hearing somewhere that you could have images created using AI just by giving it a written description of the idea you've formulated. In my search for some kind of program I could use in order to do this I came across NightCafe.
At first I was extremely skeptical whether this would even work or if it did that it would look generically terrible. I figured I could maybe get some sort of base design layed out that I could then redraw over but in my own style with a more detailed finished look to it. Needless to say, in only expecting nothing to possibly something poorly done, my mind was blown away by what I was actually able to create. I only had free use of the NightCafe site at that point and even though I had the most fun trying to create what my mind was imagining I couldn't get it exactly right. However in the meantime I was getting so much enjoyment out of learning to use this new medium for my art. Even better, I was able to use my iPad and fingers so it wasn't as hard on my hands due to the myotonia getting worse. I also started thinking this would be a great way to create artworks for coloring pages that I had interests in rather than looking for coloring books that didn't really do it for me.
Since I was using NightCafe so much I decided to go PRO as it was helping me to keep up with making my art these days and wasn't as taxing on my body due to my disabilities. Once I decided to do that the options for what I could create just opened up for me dramatically. I've been using NightCafe since the end of August 2024. I have been on here every single day learning how to do new things constantly. I love joining in on challenges because it makes me try things I wouldn't have done on my own. I adore creating new LoRAs to use and now that there are Templates I've been enjoying making those as well. I have certainly strayed from my original plan on NightCafe but I'm constantly backtracking to work on it bit by bit.
The NightCafe Select competition definitely renewed my original idea to create a kids story all over again. I came up with a completely new story on a whim for this competition though because my other stories didn't focus on "feelings" for plot content. The idea was a simple one and I only intended for it to be a short little thing. The story ended up having a life of its own and coerced me into making it longer and longer with more content in the end. Now that I've completed my Select competition project I have so many more fun ideas to try out. I'm also going to go back to my original story idea that brought me to NightCafe to begin with. I'll be working on that again along with the new story I created for the Select competition because it is apparently not done with me yet and the story wants to live more adventures. LOL"
What Influences Her AI Art
Jenny's "Night Hunter," made with Juggernaut Flux Lightning.
"I listen to a lot of audiobooks of all genres while I'm making art on my iPad. So occasionally the content I make is influenced by those audiobooks. If there's anything Dinosaur or SciFi/Fantasy related I'll take a bit of time out of making art to watch the film or read the book if there is no audiobook. I'm all about the things that go "ROAR". LOL
Some of my favorite TV series are "Firefly" by Joss Whedon, "The 100" by Jason Rothenberg, "The Walking Dead" by Frank Darabont based off of a comic series written by Robert Kirkman, "Shameless" by Paul Abbot, "Vikings" by Michael Hirst, "Warrior" by Jonathan Tropper based off writings by Bruce Lee, "Peaky Blinders" by Steven Knight, "Stranger Things" by The Duffer Brothers and "Blue Eye Samurai" by Amber Noizumi and Michael Green.
As a kid I learned to read with "Elfquest" by Wendy and Richard Pini. Because of them I love a good graphic novel and find a lot of inspiration there. As I got older I enjoyed reading a lot of manga. I fell in love with the story arc and artistry of "Blade of the Immortal" by Hiroaki Samura. Another good one that inspired me was "TRIGUN" by Yasuhiro Nightow. There are so many others but those are the ones that come to mind first."
Her Daily Challenge Secret for Placing in the Top 20%
"Regal Divinity," a dragon built entirely from tiny pearls, made with GPT Image 2 Low for Daily Challenge #1342.
"I really enjoyed doing the Anime IRL: skysparxx Creator Takeover. I ended up getting 5% on a "TRIGUN" themed creation I made. It's not always easy to come up with something that other people will like as much as I do. I do find that the ones I get better rankings with are usually ones I have the most fun creating. Even if I'm not really into the theme for the challenge, if I find a way to morph the original idea with something I'm interested in, it will entertain me enough that I end up with several really cool images to choose from. Occasionally I'll just publish them and see which gets the most likes and then use it on the challenge. Other times I just put my favorite one in because I want to. A lot of my cuter ones do get high marks I've noticed."
The takeaway: pick the version you had the most fun making. Join the Daily Challenge and try the theory on Jenny's own takeover this Friday, 9 October.
The Snail-Cheetah Prompt She Keeps Perfecting
One of Jenny's animal creations, an albino jaguar made with GPT Image 2 Medium.
"There are SO MANY of them. One of the many I keep redoing is my Snail-Cheetah series. When I was learning to combine things together for fun I thought it would be entertaining to morph together animals that are opposites in some way. The first that came to mind was mixing something slow with something fast. Hence I came up with a whole bunch of Snail-Cheetahs. I have several prompts I like to use for it but using this prompt mixed with any LoRA is a lot of fun: Walk'A'Bout Snail Critter, Cheetah-Snail, Snail-Cheetah."
The NightCafe Feature She Can't Live Without: Evolve
"Dark Beauty," made with Flux and a stack of LoRA add-ons.
"The Evolve option is my absolute must-have tool. Being able to use Evolve as well as the use/creation of LoRAs is what made me stay with NightCafe. Also the ability to use a "Start Image" has helped tremendously."
Jenny went PRO to keep up with her art, and says it opened up what she could create. Curious? Start creating and try Evolve on one of your own images.
Day 1 Advice for New AI Artists: Evolve Noise Weight
A treasure hoard of gold, gemstones and crowns, made with Flux Schnell, the model Jenny suggests starting with.
"There are so many models to choose from that it can be too difficult to move forward at first. Especially if you don't have a lot of credits to play with. Definitely give several of them a try because they are all amazing in different ways.
A good starting point I found is using "Flux Schnell". Also when you choose to Evolve an image Noise Weight is important. In this model the lower your Noise % is the closer you'll be to the image you are evolving and the higher the Noise % the more differences you're going to see. I have found that I prefer a range between 45% - 75%. It took me a while to actually use this feature because I didn't understand that at first."
An Underrated NightCafe Artist to Follow: @SunMage
Jenny's pick for an underrated artist is @SunMage.
In SunMage's own words: "My art is inspired by magic & nature: a metaphor for warm cozy hugs, laughter with friends, & life's tiny miracles. Welcome!"
Follow them if you like your art soft, magical and a little bit cozy. ☕
Winning NightCafe Select Edition 1: Sir Dracula & Creepy Eyeball
A frame from Jenny's Community Favorite story. See her full Select entry.
NightCafe Select is our competition for AI storytellers, and Edition 1 asked entrants to build a story around "The Architecture of Feeling". Jenny's Halloween story won the Community Favorite award with 1,314 votes. Here's what it meant to her:
"Even though my story was pretty simple and targets a younger audience I feel pretty honored that so many people really enjoyed it enough to take their own time to check it out and vote on it. What surprised me most was that so many people actually wanted the story to continue on with new adventures. Not only would I have not created this story to begin with if it hadn't been for the Select competition but a continuation would never have been possible without doing this from the start. Now I have those new projects on the continuation of "Sir Dracula and Creepy Eyeball" in mind to look forward to making.
Also going through the process of turning a simple idea into an entire story then into cohesive images that tell the story in a fun way was what I wanted to learn how to do when I first came onto NightCafe. I didn't realize I'd in effect be teaching myself that process when I first decided to take on the Select competition. I also learned that viewers really enjoy things that are interactive. Finding Creepy Eyeball and reading all the funny hidden messages didn't just entertain me but also entertained everyone that saw it. Many of the comments would mention a message within an image they found funny as well as about finding Creepy Eyeball or how clueless Sir Dracula was.
I am just so glad that so many people found my entry to be fun. I was not expecting all the love I got from everyone else over it. A huge thank you to everyone that sent some love and encouragement my way. Hearing from you all makes me think I'm on the right track in the long run. Even though I've pretty much been doing this for fun and out of boredom, maybe I can go further with my ideas on NightCafe. Further in a way that I'm actually able to take these new AI tools and use them as a new medium I can mold into whatever fun ideas I can possibly imagine."
Congratulations, Jenny, and thank you to everyone who voted.
Join Jenny's Daily Challenge Creator Takeover
On Friday 9 October, Jenny takes over the Daily Challenge for a Daily Challenge Creator Takeover. Next week she's also releasing a Community Prompt Guide that breaks down how she built her Creepy Eyeball story and won Community Favorite. Join the Daily Challenge and make something of your own.
How to Try Jenny's Approach
Pulled straight from her answers:
- Start with Flux Schnell if you're new and the model list feels like too much.
- Evolve at 45% to 75% Noise Weight. Lower stays close to your original, higher changes more.
- Mash up opposites. Slow and fast, tiny and huge. Then run it through a LoRA.
- Make the Daily Challenge yours. Bend the theme toward something you love.
Follow @Velvetmoss
- 🎨 NightCafe: @Velvetmoss
Your Turn
Which of Jenny's tips are you trying first? And what's the one hobby outside art that sneaks into your creations? Tell us in the comments, then start creating.