In real life, I struggle with perfectionism. Perhaps it's a result of strict, critical parenting. Perhaps it's just my nature.
Ever since I started dabbling with A.I. art, I noticed it has carried over to the digital world. There's always something that I notice that's just not right. Maybe a missed detail, or an awkward angle, or weird lighting, or something just looks wrong.
The tendency is of course to re-roll. To slam that generate button again. Maybe if I change the prompt slightly here, or adjust the LoRA weights a little there, or pray to the RNG gods hard enough, the next image would be satisfactory. This of course is a trap. There is no way to 100% control the outcome of something that is A.I. created. We steer the cart in a general direction but the horses will run to wherever they want. The only way for a 100% controlled outcome is to draw it yourself.
Let me show you something I prompted with SDXL MoonArt Cauldron Mix.
A sith warrior. My first impression was hell yes this is awesome. Everything about it was super cool to me, the outfit, the facial expression, the red coming off the lightsaber and background.
And then I saw it. Her hand. No one grips a lightsaber like that. No one grips anything like that.
So of course, what followed was several hours of trying to make image variations, trying to inpaint etc. But nothing really fixed it. The angle of the lightsaber was just wrong to begin with. There's really no way to draw an anatomically correct weapon grip here without first changing the position of the lightsaber.
Out of frustration I started to hop on various websites that offered trials of A.I. image editing. Must have tried a dozen times. With each edit there was something that just didn't sit well with me. The models, despite my specifications, changed things I didn't want them to change. The resolution, the lighting, the artstyle, her face, her other arm. This is the best iteration after all my efforts.
The grip is still kind of messed-up, like she's handling an oversized laser pointer instead of a weapon. At least her hand is anatomically correct now, more or less. She's in for some major wrist cramping though. Annoyingly, her other arm has also been brought forward. But that's something I could live with, I thought initially.
And then I saw it. Her gloves. Her gloves are not symmetrical! For some reason this annoyed my neurotic brain so much I just shelved the whole project. Maybe one day I'll learn image editing tools and fix the gloves myself. Until then, sorry Sith warrior, you just have to sit in one of my folders.
Edit:
Some image variations. Doesn't quite capture the "unskippable bossfight" vibe of the original.
fallen jedi | Civitai