It’s been 9 months since I last took on a personal creative project, and that’s simply because life got too busy. I transitioned from freelance to full time in order to better secure a mortgage and help improve my family’s living standards, which has meant a lot of personal sacrifice and less free time in general.
On top of this, our house move dragged on for 11 months and the amount of admin to make sure it didn’t fall through was essentially a part time job. The good news… We got the house, after nearly falling through a dozen times we got the home of our dreams (at least within our budget).
But it turns out that our new residence was by no means perfect. For one, it was at the upper end of what we could afford, in our starry eyed nature we overlooked some of the minor quirks that quickly became major issues that needed fixing. So my creative aptitude quickly moved from digital to DIY. I’ve been on the roof, scraping wall paper and polystyrene off the walls, painting, ripping up carpet, laying flooring, lifting heavy things which has lead to injuries… Lots of them… All while taking care of my work responsibilities and family.
There is an end goal to getting this home in shape, and that is to get back to creating content! But the list of things needing to be done to get to that point is constantly increasing and I’ve found that I haven’t had the environment or time to push forward.
But then ChatGPT’s new image features came out, and I saw a glimmer of hope. I’ve made some comics in the past and with the new ChatGPT update, I wondered if it was possible to create a new IP based on the art style of my past projects.
After a couple of hours testing out the tools, I fed ChatGPT a character sheet from my animation Wayward Valley, some backgrounds from Frigsbys Ferries and a dozen face shapes from various digital art projects from my past. I told it my inspirations and my vision for the comic and that I wanted 2 characters ‘Leaf and Core’, a sentient rock and plant navigating the post-apocalypse trying to find meanings.
And ChatGPT, took my old artwork as a base and produced something new.
Now, it’s by no means a perfect workflow. I decide on a location and theme for the 4 panel comic and use ChatGPT to refine the ideas, there’s some clever prompting to keep the characters mostly consistent (although the panels are often photbashed and drawn over in Photoshop). I do feel like there’s a lot of me in the writing, it’s my attitudes and observations about the world that come through, and although ChatGPT will pitch in with line suggestions, I find that I’m putting more thought into that aspect. My wife says the comics aren’t funny but she laughs anyway because she has the context of who I am making them. In reality, I just wanted an outlet to make stories with the limited time I have to create.
I have no incentive to get big numbers with Leaf & Core, or turn a profit, it’s a way I can explore ideas and bring them to life while adapting with AI, it’s probably closer to art therapy right now than anything else, there’s no pressure and I’m creating for fun. A much needed break from DIY after an injury has forced me to stop working on the house.
There will be those who see Leaf & Core and poo poo it because AI has had a hand in making it. I think that mentality is a little short sighted and sad, as those I’ve shared the comic with have seemed to enjoy it. Me adding value to the world doesn’t stop other people being creative. It’s quite the opposite with these tools. Anyone can use them. But here’s the kicker, just like having an iPhone doesn’t make you a filmmaker, having access to AI doesn’t make you a creative. If you want that, you have to go create things.
Anyone could look at Leaf & Core and do their own version of it for the next year, but why would they? When it’s easier and better for motivation to put your time into something that’s personal to you? We’re entering a world where we can make anything we want. It still takes time and commitment to see a project through.
With that said, I will be posting the comics on Instagram
But if you are someone who has stumbled upon this blog at the right time. You can see the first 9 comics here
