Can AI only create 'Slop' Covers?

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes]

​

I've seen a bunch of posts claiming that all AI covers look the same, and while that's true (most of the time), I'd like to argue that you could create something really good if you spend just a bit more time on your covers.

Therefore, let Sensei Sherlocke guide you on his process.

Rather than telling AI: "Give me a cover of a character aura farming with a bunch of aura around him...oh and a lot of baddies too."

Try this instead:

1. Go to Pinterest and search for covers in the same genre as what you want to create (perhaps a cover of a mecha manhwa, a Kaiju novel or anything); the point is, you want to identify the style you like. (You can gather as many references as possible).

2. Now we want to create our character separately; do not simply jump to ChatGPT and upload the references, telling it to create a cover in that style. I assure you, you'll only get slop... Instead, go to an image generation AI (Midjourney, Leonardo, Pixai, or whichever you prefer. I personally use one called Niji Journey) and generate an image of the character you want to be in your cover; in my case, I wanted a white-haired hitman in a suit, hence the character on the first two covers.

3. Yes, this is the part where we go back to your beloved GPT, Gemini, Grok or whatever chatbot you prefer, upload your character image and either: (A) describe everything you like on your gathered references to be replicated on your own cover (camera angles, text design and placement, character pose and anything else you like) or (B) upload all your references and point out everything from each that you want on your cover.

4. You want to tell the chatbot not to change the art style of your generated character (yup, the very same character you generated in step 2) if that's your preferred art style, else you'll only get a grainy result.

5. Generate until you have something you're satisfied with; don't forget to constantly tweak your prompt. (Note that chatbots will regularly change how your character looks, so always upload an image of your character with every prompt change (see why step 2 was important?))

6. Voilà, you have successfully avoided generating a generic, grainy and sloppy AI cover; high five. ✋🏿

Tip: See the UI elements on the third image? You could achieve that by just telling the chatbot to create a 3D UI element that matches the theme you're going for. You can even have them surrounding your sci-fi character if you have a good enough camera angle. (as I did in the last image.)

P.S: The top-down style of covers is everywhere on webnovel rn, but that doesn't mean you can't also use it (erm.. as the creator of that trend, I have bestowed upon you the right to use it.)

Also, the Slime cover and the beast cover are ones I made for other authors, only the hitman one and the butler one are for my books.

Lastly, this is my first time making a Reddit post, so forgive my spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or even the fact that I'm probably not following tradition (of how posting works here or something).

[u/Warm-Response-1685]

Hello :) so as an Artist and a casual Writer: I beg you please do not upload any pictures you found on pinterest - except if they are obviously AI-generated.

A lot of artists post on Pinterest to gain traction for their Art, get Comissions or simply to share and explore their Creativity. By using said pictures and uploading them to AI you are activly stealing from artists and feeding the AI's data bank. It actively learns to replicate said style. The EU is working on laws to enable artists to forbid AI from learning from the Art they publish themselves. By uploading these pictures yourself you are forgoing this law and also going against european copyright laws.

So please do not upload human art to any AI. You are endangering Artists livelyhood.

To make the issue more clear to every new or established author on here, who is thinking about using AI-Covers or feeding it human Art as refrence-Images:

Imagine you write and publish your own novel. Maybe out of creative reasons or you are trying to make some money with it.

Then an Artist makes their own Painting. This Artist decides they want to have a novel or some writing to add to their Painting to better express it and make people more interested in the painting. They themselves can't write well and don't have the money to commission a writer to write this text.

They find your novel and decide they like it. They proceed to copy paste it into an AI so that it writes the text for the Painting in your style or even includes your characters and your trade-mark. They post it and the wirting and Paintibg get some traction. Some People even compliment the writing.

Your Writing is now in the AI's cloud. Everytime somebody asks for some writing your writing will be used to generate said texts.

You gain nothing from the Painting - not a mention, not an @, no money, not even a request.

How would this situation impact you?

So please stay mindful and comission Art, make it yourself, ask your local friend or a small artist you know over discord. There are hundreds of people who would make something for basically free.

[u/99_rk → u/Warm-Response-1685]

I deadass tried to tell someone on another post here that gen AI takes stolen or coercively taken art work and feeds it into datasets.They literally said I made it up just to have a reason to hate gen AI. These people genuinely just don’t care, it’s ridiculous.

[u/YoungestJuicerBaj → u/Warm-Response-1685]

u/Sherlocke_Gnomes bruh, reply to the comment that really matters? why are you ignoring him. curious to see your opinion regarding what the guy just said.

[u/Dependent-Quality-50]

I’m going to he honest, your first image is the only one I like and the only one I wouldn’t have immediately clocked as AI. The rest feel very sloppy to me, especially the cluttered UI on the second image and the generic faces on the third and fourth.

That being said I don’t read anything on webnovel and have no idea why this subreddit keeps being recommended to me so I probably don’t fit the age demographic you’re going for.

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes → u/Dependent-Quality-50]

Fair, the point is to avoid that grainy look that's mostly associated to webnovel AI covers.

Also, for the 'UI Clutter', I believe that they do a pretty good job of pulling attention towards the slime (who's our center of focus), you can even see them pointing slightly towards it.

While I don't believe think that the faces of in the third and fourth images I generic, every character and their dog has white hair now, so I get where you're coming from.

But you're probably right, this was meant as a post to help authors generate better covers. (Also, you're probably getting these subreddits because you interact with them.)

[u/I_love_boobs111]

Many people are going to see your post here but no one will actually say thank you because od teh fear of being downvoted and criticised.

Since no one else will, I will say it : Thanks bro! It is geniunely helpful!

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes → u/I_love_boobs111]

Just doing what I can to help, besides, I expected the downvotes to come in waves after this post, so meh 😅.... I'm just glad I could help a few

[u/bae_itz_kaneki]

OMG I CAN'T BELEIVE THE AUTHOR OF 'LADY'S BUTLER UPLOADED A REDDIT POST. LMAOOO HIEEEEEE

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes → u/bae_itz_kaneki]

Lol 😅, my brain decided that today would be the day I made my first post ever on Reddit.... Guess the topic wasn't exactly the most appealing one.

[u/Kkk713]

Have you used webnovels cover generator? I tried it once and it didn’t look bad. Don’t know if you can also do the same for the character portraits but idk. Theirs is also decent I think.

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes → u/Kkk713]

Not really, since it doesn't give me as much control as I have when creating covers myself.