Stelfie is a very funny and very clumsy dude.
He time travels and has the most incredible adventures.
And he is sort of an alter ego myself
although physically we are completely different.
Originally I started this project
as a way to showcase the potential of Stable Diffusion
combined with good artist skills.
My goal was to capture a scene
where Stelfie engages in a boxing match with Muhammad Ali.
I always start with, you know, drawing a sketch.
Stable Diffusion and the other diffusion models around
are extremely good, but also extremely cheeky.
It's very easy for them to drive you away
from the original idea that you had.
Once I have the idea, I want to try a bunch of random prompts...
just to see if I can find
at least a good initial pose.
I couldn't find the pose for Stelfie on the right.
So, what I've done is that I moved to Photoshop...
and I recreate the pose myself.
ControlNet an extension
if I had to reproduce today the same pose that...
I've done two months ago with this artwork...
probably would take me 15 minutes.
Throughout the whole process
I always use different samplers.
Because the sampler is very important
in terms of realism and details.
So if you're trying to replicate skin...
Euler is very synthetic, is very fake.
But DPM, for example, is working great on that.
There are many parameters that are extremely important.
One is steps.
So steps is how many times you’re telling Stable Diffusion
to work on your prompt.
You can choose a very low number or a very high number.
Many options.
At the beginning, obviously, the two more important parts
are the the inpaint and the outpaint.
So inpaint means you are asking the machine to change
just the parts of the image
and the machine will change
only the part that you want it to be changed.
On the other side, outpaint, you’re asking to the machine...
to imagine what's outside the box
based on what is already in the box.
As you can see, I look back a lot between
Stable Diffusion and Photoshop.
So let's say that's out of 100%.
50% is done with Stable Diffusion
about 40% in Photoshop
and about 10% in Procreate.
When it comes to Stelfie’s face...
I use a model that has been trained specifically on Stelfie’s face.
So what I've done previously is that I created Stelfie in 3D...
and I took a bunch of snapshots...
of his face from different angles...
and I use those images to train the model.
So when you train the model
you save a keyword.
The noise strength is the last option
that you can see in the web UI of Stable Diffusion.
And why is important?
Because it gives you more or less control...
on the image itself.
When it comes to faces, it’s very difficult to achieve...
good results.
Especially if you're trying to replicate a popular person.
So I've asked Stable Diffusion
to make a face that would look like Muhammad Ali.
And then in Photoshop, I warped all these traits.
So I make the nose — I don't know, larger or thinner.
And the jaw...
the eyes.
So, I changed everything manually.
But what is important now is to try to have the pose
that is correct.
And I wanted to—
I wanted Stelfie to be like a bit fluffy
in terms of not super fit, without a six pack.
And probably here I sort of found...
the belly that I was happy with.
But clearly it was not realistic enough yet.
And then I used the result
and I modified the result in Photoshop.
But my understanding
of how Muhammad Ali was looking like.
So you have to, you know
and crop and cut and paste and change and warp and paint
on top, arms and eyes, exposure, skin tone
so a lot a lot of stuff.
So here I was about halfway done.
But then eventually, if you're running into trouble...
even if you're not super precise...
you can, you know, go back in the Stable Diffusion
and try to ask Stable Diffusion to help here.
You, you know, just maybe on some part of some edges
or with the lighting or with the skin.
This sort of...
stuff.
Still the the body of Muhammad Ali is not correct.
He wasn't buff like the athletes are today.
You know, he was big and healthy.
But not like this muscle that they have today.
Very defined.
And so I wanted to get that real...
realistic Muhammad Ali.
Here we are in a good position
because probably we are 12 or 14 hours in.
And as you can see, the scene is set.
So it's all good to go.
You just need to make it better.
Well here—
Probably they don't like nipples, who knows.
The nipples period of Stelfie.
You know, before December
which is when Stelfie was born...
I was going to bed
and there was dreaming about beautiful ladies.
Now all that I dream about is about 41 years old dude.
So, no. Not great. Not great.
Well, I feel you have to drive the machine
not the other way around.
And just to prove how important
is the artist’s part in the overall process creation.
I see the overall process
as a joint effort with the AI.
I’ve been a traditional artist for 2 decades, painting on canvas.
And in the last five years
I've been doing a lot of digital art.
So from that part of myself, I don't feel threatened at all.
I feel this is an opportunity.
An opportunity for many new talented people...
to jump on a new branch of art
that is completely different
from the one that we have already in digital art
and just open up new way of being creative.
50% of the hands that you see in Stelfies are mine.
And that's because it has always been
extremely challenging to reproduce hands.
So what I was doing is that, you know, if I needed the hand in some position
I would take a picture of my hand...
and then I would clean it up and paste on top.