Here is another set of generative images around the theme of Cassandra's city of Troy burning down because no one would believe her prophecies. What a curse. It has felt somewhat like a curse generating and curating images in this style, using a prompt such as:
the mythical figure cassandra astonishingly beautiful feminine features standing in a burning hallway in a greek temple, frontal view, sad, a burning ancient greek city in the background intricate, elegant, highly detailed, digital painting, artstation, concept art, smooth, sharp focus, illustration, art by artgerm and greg rutkowski and alphonse mucha and william - adolphe bouguereau 35mm
I like the quiet poeticism of this one. The orb may present the prophecy, but that there isn't a burning city. Not yet, at least. This was one of the first images generated by the prompt, and it is very abstract in terms of its representations. The figure isn't featured as prominently as I would like, but perhaps the subject matter is meant to be about the prediction, and not the woman that made it.
Here, the glow of what could be a burning city comes up from within the valley to light the character. This isn't as atmospheric, dark, and apocalyptic as images of a burning city should be. The pose is not as distraught as it should be at the witnessing of such an event, either. All together, it makes it difficult to enable this image to progress further down the line which I will cull.
In regards to prominent characters, this image certainly is not that. She's a wisp on the right hand side of the frame, lost in the flames itself.
You'll notice these images start to have a bit more intimacy to them, because I modified the prompt ever so slightly to bring it to the interior of a burning, ancient, ruined greek temple, and well ,that's the images that I am now getting. So heads up on an accurate prompt and rendering of that prompt!
Not sure what is up with the generative watermark there. :D
I didn't know that stone could burn in this manner, but apparently, flames can engulf stone pillars. Again, there's a generative signature here as well.
I like this one because it gives it a "portal to hell" sorta vibe in the image. That's the obvious exit, but with the structure on the right hand side of the frame balancing out the figure on the left, it stands stoic as a contrast to the chaos of fabric and fire on the left hand side of the image. This makes it interesting, but... not quite what I'm going after. I want it to be MORE DRAMATIC.
This image is pretty dramatic, but the figure is indistinct. I want to build a character portrait in an environment, not an environment that just happens to feature a character.
This image in particular is not suitable for the "Cassandra" project, but by god does it it have so much meaning. The order of the columns, the upwards progressions of the steps towards the gleaming daylight is an analogy for the woman who is topless, vulnerable to the "light of day", of her prediction, while another, turned away, tries to bring her close to us, to turn away from the bright searing lights of prophecy and back toward reality.
This is my interpretation, and while elaborate, the burning fabric on the left figure brings even more meaning to this image. It is beautiful, strongly symbolic, and extraordinarily well composed.
Next, grainy, undetailed image of a burning set of ruins, with a figure caught up amongst the fire and flame. It is devoid of other figures, which I think I can work on. having people rush about the scene, while one figure is static, like a long exposure photograph, might work, but that's not something I've yet experimented with inside of any of these generative systems.
I like the fact that this example has some smoke present, it makes the fire seem more realistic, but I am not sure what would be burning in a stone city.
I thought this image was just a wonderful composition, with a mythical figure, and a decent landscape illustrated in the background the backlight from the sun and clouds is pretty stunning, too.
This image follows a similar compositional theme, but there's more of a hint of fire, and a hint of sadness in the way the nose and chin are downcast, but there's a general lack of detail to see this one be considered a masterpiece and worthy of me pursuing further, so it is onwards I go in search of the ideal Cassandra and her burning city.
The pose and atmosphere in this image is interesting, but the hands are as we say in Australia "completely munted" which means "not good", that's sad, because it is a great composition, with tension.
The temple and the city are both burning here, but there's not enough detail in the figure. That won't do at all!
This is a far gentler composition, but I really wish there was far more detail within the facial features. I could use something like in-painting to try and generate more detail, but I feel like if I press on, I can get some other, more interesting compositions and better developed characters.
At this point, I want to change the prompt to get more photographic results instead of painterly ones...
ront view, sad, detailed face, , the mythical figure cassandra astonishingly beautiful feminine features standing in a burning hallway in the ruins of a greek temple, a burning ancient greek city of troy in the background fine art photography, photography, by annie leibovitz, steve mccurry, juan francisco casas and kyle thompson, natural light, detailed face, f2.8, 35mm, 8k, editorial photograph drone footage
Here is one of the short listed images after some further experimentation and variation:
I like the compositional elements here, the intense fire and carnage in the background, along with the apparently rough appearance of the character serves to explain a lot, but it loses some of its interpretative ability by being more resolved and accurate in terms of realism in representation.
Her neck, however; is far too long, and we would need to run through a face-clean up to get something more coherent - as a result, I don't think it is valid to pursue this one further.
And here is another one:
Here there is a central compositional element of the character, which is framed in a decent manner, with an equal level of chaos happening in the background. I am not so sure.
Finally (for today's iterations and explorations, at least) is another image featuring an extreme close up of what is a very rough, sad, and extremely burning city in the background, accompanied by our character request.
This looks like a documentary photograph - and that is not a bad thing. I think this could also benefit from some reconstruction of the face, but it appears that I am getting close in terms of what I want with this prompt. I just need some people running around in the background to get this going really nicely, as well, as zooming out on the character a little bit to enable more of the background detail to come through.
What I probably want is a combination of the last two images presented, and that is what I will work on further for my next post.
For now, time to take a rest, and sleep upon what I've created here, in a bid to come back with some fresher ideas tomorrow.
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