Reflective Analysis and Creative Project in AI Arts by Vincent Lam

Part 1: Reflective Analysis

Introduction

In this ever-evolving world, artificial intelligence has made huge leaps in development. As of late, AI technology has been integrated in almost every aspect of everyday life. AI tools can be found in numerous fields ranging from design and software engineering to music and video editing. In this essay I will combine my interest in comics and music with the help of AI to answer this question: Can AI be used to make a comic based on lyrics from a song? The idea for this project came from a music video a friend of mine introduced to me. The song, AEIOU is produced by two Australian music groups, and features an upbeat electro beat that is quite catchy. The interesting thing about this song is that the music video was made by MELT, an interdisciplinary studio that specializes in creating immersive experiences. MELT used AI technology in order to produce stunning visuals that were used in the music video. Intrigued by this concept I applied the same idea but to a different form of media, comics.

Which AI tools should I use for my own project?

With AI being such a new and hot commodity there are countless programs and platforms that I could use. Also, with the rising of AI technology there is always a new and emerging AI tool that is better than its predecessors. I could have used Google’s Gemini to get help with planning and writing for my project or I could have used Runway to help develop my creative image design. Personally, I chose to stick with two AI programs that I am familiar with, Midjourney and Chat GPT. Midjourney is a generative artificial intelligence program with the sole focus of creating images. I used Midjourney because of its accessibility and the level of detail it produces. ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses AI to interact with users to complete a number of different tasks. I use ChatGPT for its ability to reference messages and ease of making requests and corrections.

What kind of ethical challenges appear when working with AI?

Ethically people are against AI tools for different reasons. Mainly people are worried that AI may result in individuals losing their jobs. For instance, AI is fantastic at helping people create their own website and code. But if everyone had access to free code that could result in less need for software engineers. The ethical trouble that I struggle with is with generative AI art. I feel that it is amazing that with the help of AI tools you can create an image of anything. But there is a fine line on what a person should be able to do with AI tools. For example, it is unethical to ask artificial intelligence to write an article and publish it while claiming that you did all the work. The correct way to use AI tools is to help generate ideas and concepts. AI tools can be limiting at times, and they require a human hand in order to succeed. With AI tools the human imagination can be expanded, and a new era of art can be born.

Part 2: Creative Project Reflection

In order to answer my questions of “Can AI be used to make a comic based on lyrics from a song?” I brought it upon myself to try. Before starting I believed that this task was simple and would not require too much effort. I was horribly mistaken. My process was not complicated. I would choose a song, make a story board with the help of ChatGPT and then create images based on the storyboard. I would then take these images and place them in a comic book format. The song I chose was Hotel California by the Eagles. A classic karaoke song that is beloved by many. The reason I chose this song was because of my personal enjoyment of the music, the popularity of the song, and the many interpretations that have been made on the song’s meaning. With no clear-cut story from the song, I could illustrate my own understanding of the lyrics and create a visual representation of what I think of when I listen to Hotel California.

With the help of ChatGPT the story that I envisioned begins with a man driving down a dark desert highway. In the distance he sees a neon sign notifying him of the hotel up ahead. Feeling weary the man decides to stop for the night. Pulling up to the hotel in his black convertible the man is amazed at the sight of the large building. The man enters the eerie hotel lobby and gets a room key form the receptionist. Wanting a drink the man heads for the bar. Taking note of the other patrons, he notices how differently people are dressed, as if they are from a different time. The man’s eye catches an attractive woman dancing with a group of men, admiring their spirt, he gets his drink from the bartender. Later then man accepts an invitation from the attractive women to dine with her at the feast in the great dining room. Arriving at the dinner party the man witnesses the hotel guest consuming rotten food swarming with bugs. Fleeing in terror the man makes a desperate attempt at escape sprinting down the halls of the hotel. The man lost in the endless maze of the hotel hears a voice coming from the hotel staff that confirms his fears. Accepting his fate, the man collapses, condemned to the halls of the hotel forever.

Getting a good story board from ChatGPT took some work. My approach was to give ChatGPT the lyrics to the song and explain my expectations on how I expected the story to go. ChatGPT would give me a general outline which I would have to break up into individual scenes. I would then take these scenes and revise and edit them until I was satisfied. The story does not follow completely along with the song word for word. This was my artistic choice.

The next step in my process was to have ChatGPT and Midjourney generate images for my comic. This part was the most time-consuming and where I ran into the most trouble. One thing that ChatGPT and Midjourney have the most trouble with is consistency. Total I feel that I generated over +100 different images for this project, but I only needed 18. ChatGPT could keep track of my conversation and note important details but overall would produce images that were too far from the original idea. I could fine tune these images with some editing but that took time. ChatGPT also crashed on me once and I lost a lot of reference material. Midjourney is a different beast that requires very detailed descriptions to create an image. Midjourney makes good art but between the panels of the comics it would look inconsistent. I opted for a technique that would use both ChatGPT and Midjourney to create images. I would define a scene to ChatGPT, and it would go into artistic detail on how the image should look, I then took that description and plugged it into Midjourney. The technique produced mixed results, but it was enough for me to finish my comic.