AI in all of its wonder

[steve_pickstock]

Recently and very sadly a friend of mine died. Both he and his brother were members of my company of dragoons, so I thought I'd make a model of Kendal for his brother Paul.

It began with this picture

This is us - from l-to-r - Kendal, Paul and myself in Notenboom Straat, Groenlo, outside of de Kroon in 2017, I think.

On hearing of Kendal's passing I posted this to my Facebook profile as a memorial.

I used Chatgpt and it took a couple of goes and some editing in Powerpoint to get it right but I think it's a good picture and does everyone justice.

But then it occurred to me that perhaps Paul - the surviving brother, might like figures of the both together, so I took this edited version of the picture

and fed it it into Meshy, to get this.

Some issues with the results - the hemlines of the coats are all over the place, and Paul's musket is split into two parts and dislocated laterally, but it's nothing that can't be fixed.
When I asked Paul if this would be acceptable, he asked if I'd add myself to the group, not as in the picture - I don't think anyone would want to see that! - but as my Mini-Me figure, so as soon as I get a chance that is what I will be working on.

[steve_pickstock]

I just sat down and took all of the supports off the figures - those bits of resin that the computer adds to the figure to make sure that it doesn't collapse under the weight of resin. This has allowed me to have a good look at what need to be done to them.

Paul's coat looks good, the hems are pretty level all the way round, no work needed there, but the rear of Kendal's will need some miliput or greenstuff. Paul's dislocated musket will either need me to cut one part away from the figure (very carefully as the resin can be brittle) and then glue it to his right hand, or I can cut both parts away and replace them with one from the Warlord Games 17thC infantry sprue. Both figures will need swords adding from the sprue and I will need to make straps, probably from Tamiya fine masking tape.

Still not as much work as I though it might be.

[MABO]

What an emotional gift for your friends brother. I am sorry for your loss.

[Santi Pérez]

I share your feelings, Steve. But I also congratulate you on such an excellent idea. I think it will be a fantastic gift for your friend. Can't wait to see it printed.

Santi.

[steve_pickstock]

Thank you Mabo and Santi.
Yesterday my wife and I drove to Leeds in Yorkshire, in dreadful conditions to go and see Kendal off with his family.
I took the figures and showed them to his brother and several other of our friends to see what they thought of them. The figures went down really well.
All of these people are re-enactors so their opinions were useful.
Obviously the musket was an issue but I was worried about the hemline at the back of Kendal's coat being all over the place. Now these people have all worn kit (what other people call costume) and they're used to looking at kit. What that means is that they know what looks right, and it was pointed out that it doesn't actually look that bad.
What I think I will do, is finish a 'proper' version - using miliput to correct the line of the hem; and a 'real' version for my own collection to reflect the way that coats get caught up in other equipment and don't always look parade ready. (I mean I always look like a bag of rags tied loose around the middle as my dad used to say, so that would be right then).

[steve_pickstock]

I can't remember if I have shared any of my old cartoons here before but I did a series of cartoons based on the English Civil War about 30 years ago. They were collected and published in a pamphlet. About ten years ago I discovered the originals when I was looking for something else and have since published them on Facebook and places like that.
So recently we have had people in rebuilding our bathroom so I have been tied to the house and not able to do very much.
So, I started running the old cartoons through Chat GPT to see what that did to them, either electing to create photo realistic versions of the images or re-doing them in the style of say van Dyck and so on.

One of the ones I did was this one about a battlefield betting sweep.


Once it had gone through the AI it came out like this


So still being bored I took the main figure and ran it through Meshy AI to get an .stl file so that I could use this as either a 1/72nd scale or a 12mm scale figure - and this would go with the Warlord Games Epic scale figures.


Which gave me this.

There are, as usual, issues with the figure from the conversion from 2D to 3D, the shortened neck of the horse, the extraneous strap around the neck and the lack of a sword, but I think 12mm these will not be a problem. Who ever designed the Warlord figures came up with some pretty grotesque figures. They are designed to looked good en masse, and I think this will be okay when placed next to them.
All I have to do is get it printed now.

[MABO]

Another astonishing AI story. Please show the figure after printing!

[steve_pickstock]

So, I did post the cartoons to the forum, you'll find them on this thread.
viewtopic.php?f=79&t=26508

[Santi Pérez]

Whenever I see your creations using ChatGPT and other AI tools, I’m always amazed by your skill. Well done on these pieces, Steve!

Santi.

[steve_pickstock]

[Quote"Santi"]Whenever I see your creations using ChatGPT and other AI tools, I’m always amazed by your skill. Well done on these pieces, Steve! [/quote].

The AI part of it is nothing - really.
In the first part - ChatGPT - I just type a prompt in or give it picture to play with and tell it what to do with them eg "redraw this cartoon in the still of van Dyck" it does the rest. It really is that simple. If the program does something wrong you tell it to redraw the picture and correct the error. in the case of this picture

the original had men in top hats in the background. I asked it redraw the images which it did, and it corrected the picture, but it also changed the figures in the foreground.
Because I preferred the original image, so I edited the new section in to the original.
The next step is to feed the image into Meshy AI.
There isn't much more to it than that.
Meshy does its thing, if you don't like it you can discard the output and get it to redo it until you get something you like.
In the case of the Mini Me figure, because it's based on quite a small picture the level of detail in the figure is low, a better resolution image gives a better result for the output.
After that it's down to convention model making and painting.

[sberry]

This fascinating thread here is the reason I even started my own AI experiments. I'm still surprised at how sometimes you get excellent results, but other times there are complete failures with seemingly simple tasks. That's why you still need a human who brings the creativity and judgment to guide the AI ​​in the right direction, I think.

The whole AI-based 3D printing thing also looks very promising; I have absolutely no experience with that yet... I have more soldiers than I could ever paint for my beloved Romans, and in every conceivable pose, it seems. But there are always civilian themes where nothing is commercially available, and for those, a custom 3D print to my specifications would be ideal.

[steve_pickstock]

Should have had the prints from the cartoon image last night but it didn't happen. This weekend is the Phalanx Show in St Helens, Lancs, so aside from other goodies - the Red Box Wizards, Witches and were-wolves (which sounds like a Young Adventure choose your path adventure book) are on the painting tray, along with some of the Alliance Tudor English Missile Troops, I should have pictures of the prints on Sunday.

[steve_pickstock]

As promised the prints from the "Toon Experiment", based as they are on my original cartoons, plus a few other items that I had in the printing stack.

First up, the 'Epic' scale officer.


(I'm sorry about the focus on the pictures, I'm trying to use the macro feature on my phone but even that is up against it with white resin)

This came out really nicely – I am happy to admit that there are issues with these figures, extra straps and harness, the horse's neck is too short and other issues, but despite that, I'm happy with them. The Epic figures are a sort of 12(ish) mm, and as I have said before, the original Warlord Games sometimes look a little 'off', they're designed to look good en masse, so this guy won't look too bad next to them.

Here he is with some of their pikemen, and yeah, he looks okay.


Here is the Epic scale figure with the 20mm - 1/72nd scale figure


And two views of the 1/72nd scale figure as he is.


All the same comments apply with the larger figure – especially so because he's bigger and you can make out the detail more easily, BUT I can't wait to see him along side my Revell 30YW cavalry.

Here he is next to a Red Box Scurrer.


As well as the two figures I had some other bits in the queue for printing.
I haven't forgotten my 10mm project – for playing at home. I want a set of 'bits' to make landscapes for fantasy games, pieces that add to the table and suggest 'times long past, people that have been there before and left their mark on the landscape. The giant stone cow from the Brigitte Nielson/Arnold Schwarzenegger film Red Sonja, is a good example of what I mean, it's odd, it's there but where did it come from?

So in this case we have a lamassu (Persian winged bull) gateway taken from a photo and fed into Meshy.ai and turned into an .stl file. I believe that the AI based this model on a gateway from the reign of Sargon II from Iraq, and now preserved in the Louvre.




I did this in two sizes, one 50mm tall and one 30mm tall.

The 50mm version will do as a 'human sized' for 20mm games, and a monumental sized version in 10mm games.
Here it is with various figures to show the scale.



I'm probably just going to do the 50mm version for use on the table, it looks great next to the 12mm figures, it looks more imposing.
I envisage this standing proud as a ruin, with scattered masonry around it, a few scrubby bushes, all pale stone and dusty.
People might say that this is AI stealing images, but in all honesty if I was scratch-building something like this, I would have drawn very heavily on the Sargon imagery myself, to the point of copying it.

When I was trying to create ideas for the lamassu gate in Perchance ai, the system offered me this as an image. It wasn't what I wanted but it was so damned cute!

Originally it was intended for the 10mm landscape, but it would do as a statue in 20mm or even 28mm. Probably going to do this in verdigrised bronze.

Lastly and not AI related, though it did lead onto some interesting discussions with a member of the company that put the game on, was this wonderful piece of scenery at the Phalanx show in St Helens today. The game was by organised by Tiger Miniatures - https://www.tigerminiatures.co.uk/

The idea of the game was to get around the islands on the board, eventually ascending to the top of this to win.

[steve_pickstock]

So, further to the two figures I had printed based on my old cartoons, I have based them up and undercoated them in this week's mass undercoating.
I needed to add a slice of plastic under the near side back hoof, and then fared it in with filler.
First up the 1/72mm - 20mm figure. Here it is with a Revell 30YW Swedish cavalryman (I did so many of these that I started mounting them on any horses I had that looked even remotely suitable).
And, yes, he looks quite in scale with them.




The two figures 20mm and 12mm together.


The little guy on his own.


Next to some Warlord Games 12mm "Epic" cavalry.

I'm not totally convinced by this comparison. If you look at the figure next to some pikemen (below) it looks alright, however the Warlord figures are a bit bizarre in their hunched up manner. They (the Warlord figures ) look good en masse, so I think the little guy will do because he is a personality figure, designed to stand out and be part of the horde. I suppose that I could always get him reprinted a little bigger, but I will hold off on that until he is finished.

Next to the pikemen.

[steve_pickstock]

Some more pictures of the recent prints.

As I have said previously, this lammasu gateway is designed to be a piece of scenery for 10mm games. The idea is that it's there. No explanation, no reason, it's probably not even relevant to the game. It's just part of the landscape, from the people that were there before, the battle is going on around it.

So I gave it a basic coat of sand and then dry-brushed it with several lighter tones, and then used the edge of the nib of an off-white acrylic pen to do some edge highlights. Not sure how well that worked but overall it will do. It needs some greenery but that's it.





This is another piece of 'dot' scenery.
I was aiming at a heavily weathered bronze statue, but it needs more work.


[mg]https://i.ibb.co/BHyzYrdn/20260704-101145.jpg[/img]


The strips of orcs for scale are from Wargames Atlantic.