namakxin

🚀Creativce Journey: Bath Theme

Added 2023-11-16 19:58:07 +0000 UTC

Hello! This is namakxin.

Through this creative journey post, I aim to address various questions you might have about my process in producing artworks with Midjourney, including my criteria for artwork uploads and the editing process. This will be operated irregularly, ensuring it doesn't interfere with artwork production.

The theme for this creative journey is "Bath Theme". I have previously showcased this theme through League of Legends characters like Ahri and Jinx, as well as Nami from One Piece.

For those who are curious, I'll leave the links here:

Ahri in the Bath: https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/111702321
Jinx in the Bath: https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/111703016
Nami in the Bath: https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/112397113

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Personally, I find the production difficulty of these artworks to be at the highest level. It's been incredibly challenging to achieve artwork that meets my standards with Midjourney, even after spending countless hours.

I want to share this process with you all.

First, let me briefly explain my criteria for artwork production and upload:

1. Does it resemble the character?
2. Is the artwork aesthetically pleasing?
3. Does it have a proper composition and physical accuracy? (Or is it modifiable?)
4. Additionally, if I am serializing a theme, does it fit within that theme?

After meeting these criteria, I collect and select the artworks, then start editing to remove unnecessary elements and awkward parts. The Bath Theme literally required emphasizing the sexiness of various characters in the bath, leading to many discarded elements. Showing is better than telling. Here are some examples of artworks generated by inputting various prompts emphasizing the Bath Theme in Midjourney.

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This is regarding the Raiden Shogun artwork.

Even after inputting prompts related to bathing, most of the generated artworks either show characters entering a bath fully clothed or are completely unrelated to bathing. There are many cases of distorted bodies or structurally awkward poses. Among these, the artwork third from the bottom had some potential, as the awkwardness in the arms seemed fixable. However, it wasn't compelling enough to keep, so it was ultimately discarded.

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Mikasa also faced similar challenges. You will notice many artworks that are compositionally impossible. Among them, the fourth from the bottom among hundreds of Mikasa artworks was the best case, but I hesitated to upload it as it seemed less sexy than intended.

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Ahri's artworks were somewhat better, but many featured her wearing clothes or were awkward in some way. Despite this, the second-to-last artwork showed potential for uploading. With the use of Midjourney's vary feature and Photoshop editing, I was able to create an aesthetically pleasing artwork.

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Nami underwent the same process as Ahri.

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Both Ahri and Nami were eventually completed through Midjourney and Photoshop.

In this manner, artworks that were truly unusable were generated much more frequently compared to other themes/series. Even those that met aesthetic standards often fell short of embodying the "Bath Theme." Therefore, it took as little as a day or as much as several days to obtain just one or two suitable artworks.

Now for the much-anticipated Jinx. Personally, among the artworks I've created, Jinx was the most challenging in terms of production difficulty, and the time invested in it would likely compete for first place.

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As I continued to work on the artworks, whenever I had time, I focused on generating Jinx images from Midjourney. After producing about a thousand images, I was finally able to salvage one decent artwork – the first one at the end. I used High Vary to find something usable.

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With High Vary, I found a usable composition. This is the second artwork from the end. Then, to enhance its aesthetic aspects, I used Low Vary.

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After completing Low Vary, this was the outcome from Midjourney. The shape of the chest was awkward, and there were numerous unnecessary tattoos.

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To salvage this artwork, I first removed the tattoos with Photoshop, and then continued editing to create a more natural chest shape, using Photoshop and running Stable Diffusion’s i2i all day. I've brought a gif for easier comparison.

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This resulted in the final piece, Jinx in the Bath. I believe there were easier ways to achieve a natural chest shape using Stable Diffusion, but I lacked the time to study and discover how to utilize it effectively. I have shown you an example of a somewhat complex process, but not all my work is done this way. Most of the time, the work is completed within Midjourney and Photoshop. I will conclude the Bath Theme here. I hope you have a great day.

ㅤ

P.S.: This post, along with all others, has been translated using Chat GPT. Please excuse any awkwardness in the translation.