Ideas come and go. Every idea has it’s season - Rick Rubin
<aside> <img src="/icons/thought-dialogue_red.svg" alt="/icons/thought-dialogue_red.svg" width="40px" /> I wrote the initial draft of this piece as I was working, to help me refine my process. I’ve done minor editing to make it more readable but you may find weird pacing & structuring. Lets call it my style.
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I like revisiting projects I’ve worked on. The ones that never seem to be quite finished.
This is true for me across a lot of subjects but most prominent with my original characters. The ones I feel most connected to?
Case & point, my project(s) for today: Nazul & Cheshire.
Original characters I started developing in 2015, then 2021 but never fully finishing.
I’ve been listening to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A way of Being and it’s made me make sense of why this happens. Today, I’m embracing it and will keep on exploring my ideas.
I’ll be using a mouse and keyboard as I try to move from a concept in my head to finished illustrations with generative Ai.
My tools of choice are Midjourney, Dall-E and Photoshop.
I will enjoy the flow of iteration and let the tool led me to something I find impressive. Consider thinking of Gen AI models as creative partners that understand your needs. Although the output might not always match your exact communication, these models allow you to explore a multitude of ideas. Rick Rubin explains this well in his book. I highly recommend.
Anyway, enough preamble, let's get to it.
First, I need to think of the piece. General composition and how I plan to arrive at it.
Since I won’t be drawing (using a mouse), I’ll leave a lot of the fine details to Midjourney. I’ll be using photoshop to bash concepts together. This worked well in my Cheshire Rick piece ⬇️.