Fun with AI Generated Cover Art

Hello Readers,

I hope you are well.

Today, I would like to share some rejected cover art for my project, Theriomorphos: The Huntress Encounters a Wolfman.

I originally intended to upload the game on Friday, 2 December 2022. However, itch.io's project upload page suggested I should have cover art. The whole reason I went with a text game is because I have next to no ability to create visual art. So, I decided to try AI generated art at mage.space. I spent an entire afternoon playing with mage.space and laughing at (or being terrified of) the art it created. However uncanny or unintentionally hilarious what it created might be, it was all still better than what I could make on my own. Below are some of the results.

In the early attempts, I did not restrict real pictures. The art below of the Huntress and Wolfman nearly made me stop entirely. It was pure nightmare fuel.

After filtering out attempts at reality, I ended up with something slightly less disturbing. This Wolfman has a runny nose, and the Huntress has an enormous fluffy tail. Let me stress at this point that I wasn't deliberately trying to make such strangeness. I really wanted something that would make a pleasing cover.

Next, I tried asking for a drawing instead. It produced the image below, in which the Huntress seems to be holding the Wolfman's severed genitals in her right hand. I swear, I did not put any NSFW search terms in the field. By this point, I also figured out the AI prefers females in partial undress. This picture demonstrates the combination of horror (on the left) and humor (on the right) that kept me entertained for an entire afternoon.

Next, I tried limiting it to portraiture, thinking bodies might be overcomplicating things. I got an image I would have been happy to use as my cover art, except for the bushy tail sprouting from the Huntress's head. I tried desperately to get mage.space to eliminate the tail but keep the drawing, but every attempt failed.

Next, I gave up trying to get two figures into the same image and stuck with iterations of the Wolfman. Here is one example where I added "anime" to the search terms. It illustrates another problem, which is that the AI would add odd details like extra fingers and arms, muscles to nowhere, and tails in the wrong places.

Next, I tried iterations of the Huntress with many of the same problems I had with the Wolfman. So, I tried silhouettes instead. The AI would frequently add massive spears or sabres to the image. When I tried to ask for a bow and arrows, I got the image below. When I asked to restrict weapons, I got sticks to nowhere, a preview of which you can kind of see jutting into her neck and upper back.

Next, I tried to give the AI something other than weapons or sticks to put in her hands, so I asked for a basket. This is literally the penultimate image I was given and my last attempt at asking for a smaller basket. At least it wasn't bigger than her anymore, but she still could have carried the Wolfman home in it.

The final image I got became the cover art for my game. I asked for the silhouette of a Huntress on a cliff with a forest in autumn. I couldn't find anything glaringly wrong with it, and it fit with one of the routes in my game (the cliff climb in the hills), so I added the title, uploaded it, and published my game.

I don't mean to bash the AI artwork. Again, it was better than anything I could have created on my own, and the AI churned out images in seconds. mage.space is great fun, and I recommend trying it out.

Have a lovely day,

Xasqinq