Jack of Harts

Back before I found the magic of DAZ Studio, or the more modern AI Art, I went to real artists and paid them to draw some of my characters. Usually Jack and Betty to start with, and if I liked the quality and cost, I asked for more. One artist I approached was the legendary MattPlog who has been making BattleTech art as long as I can remember. I was in a particularly OCD phase when I worked with him, and I ended up changing the scope of the project in the middle of the project. Bad idea. Don’t do this, kids. Do as I say now, not what I did when I was young and stupid. 😉 I did get the best version of the Texas Marine Corps uniform of Jack’s time that I have out of the project though. Plog really nailed the landing.

I like art, both of the word and the picture kind. I like to use words to paint pictures, and I like pictures worth a thousand words. Barring that, I just like pretty things. Pictures or words. While seeking both, I have gone the way of CG art, using programs like DAZ Studio to generate art through the magic of manipulating numbers. This is a piece I designed bringing together many elements created by other people to come up with a final piece that I liked and felt right to me. No cowboy hat, because hair and hats are a difficult mix to get right. This is Jack, rendered in DAZ Studio on my computer.

The new AI Art craze is rather interesting. Some people love it. Some people hate it. As an author, I rather like it because I can use the AI Art to come up with character ideas. Enter in the descriptive bits, enter in what kind of art I want it to make, and then see what happens. In my experience, it takes a lot of tries to get something I like. So AI Art is kinda like firing a shotgun and seeing if any of the pellets strike where you want. And then racking it and firing again if you don’t like anything it came up with. It takes a while, but the results can be impressive. Here is a nice piece that fits Jack that NightCafe Studio was able to generate.