Illustrating Science Fiction Stories
Here in 2024, I'm having fun writing a science fiction story called "Time Portal" (see my blog: Dr. Twissell). As expected from the title, this story concerns time travel, but the larger Sci Fi plot element that permeates "Time Portal" is human telepathy and other special cognitive abilities that are made possible by the nanoscopic endosymbionts that reside inside human brain tissue. With the help of her Phari endosymbiont, Francesca Maurolico (see Twissell's Leap) is able to obtain information from the Sedron Time Stream. Usually, Francesca experiences her access to this information as a "vision" of the future. Currently, I getting help from Bard (see this chat session) to invent a character for "Time Portal" who will be a comparative philosophy scholar living in Perth, Australia in 1922 who is named Maya Coomaraswamy and who does research on mysticism and mystical experiences in Gurkhaland.
To illustrate "Time Portal" I've been making use of tools such as WOMBO Dream. The image shown to the right is a screenshot from the DeviantArt website showing how an image (such as I Will Never Let You Go ) that is uploaded and marked as "created utilizing AI tools" can end up being displayed. It is interesting to see images that were not created by DreamUp being used to advertise DreamUp.
The image at the top of this journal entry is a composite image that was made by starting with the following text prompt: "the vibrations in subtle realms stem from the inherent dynamism of consciousness itself. In these realms, awareness and energy are closely intertwined, with thoughts, emotions, and intentions creating vibrational patterns that influence the environment and experience". That text originated from the Bard chatbot. I hope to get help from Bard to help me create dialog that includes comments on Hindu mysticism from Maya.
AI-generated images
In 2023, I've been experimenting with AI-generated images. Why? I write science fiction stories and I like to illustrate those stories. I came to DeviantArt in 2014 when I was in search of stock images that I could use in my story illustrations. I view software such as DreamStudio as a tool for helping me make illustrations, not all that different from other tools I use like Daz Studio.
I've been placing some of my AI-generated images in a gallery (https://www.deviantart.com/johnwschmidt/gallery/86086115/ai-generated). The gallery image that has attracted the most attention is "I Will Never Let You Go" ...
This image illustrates a common problem with the Stable Diffusion algorithm for image generation. There is no intelligence at work in the software. The computer program that generates the images has no understanding of what it is doing. In particular, Stable Diffusion often fails to generate anatomically correct human figures.
I've been documenting my experiences as I learn about AI-generated images. For more information visit my blog: What are the Rules?.
Below: Marda and Tyhry experimenting with nanotechnology.
Imaginary Books
Special thanks to all the deviantArt members who share their beautiful images as stock!
For additional information about my imaginary Sci Fi books, visit my blog post about Imaginary Books.
Clones and Teleportation Duplicates
Imaginary Magazine: Future Science
The issues for the first three years of "Astounding Stories" magazine are in the public domain. These issues are available at the Project Gutenberg Astounding Stories bookshelf.
I created covers for an imaginary science fiction magazine called "Future Science". I started with 1930s "Astounding Stories" covers and inserted a character from my Exode Trilogy, Grean the Kac'hin. To illustrate Grean, I've used photographs of models that were uploaded to deviantART by CathleenTarawhiti. Creating these photomanipulations provided me with practice in how to use Photoshop.