Experiments

005

Giant robots

Can the pilot stay anime while the robot stays cinematic?

Fan artThe robots and characters that inspired these images belong to their creators and rights holders. This is a personal, non-commercial tribute, with no affiliation or endorsement.

Part 01

From 75 / 25 to 85 / 15

Fan art of seven giant robots from 1970s anime, each with its pilot, in a vertical format for a reel. The technical question was where to set the balance between anime and semi-realism so the metal looks cinematic and the face doesn’t look like a photograph.

See the post on Instagram
The one I pickedPlate 01, the one that opens the reel.Krea 2 · 85 / 15 recipe · upscaled to 1536×2730

6 attempts

The pilot drifts toward photography

With the first recipe, a 75 / 25 balance, the pilot’s face kept sliding toward editorial photography while the robot looked great. Top row: 75 / 25. Bottom row: the same three robots at 85 / 15.

Each frame is an attempt. ✕ discarded · ✓ better · ★ my pick.
  1. 75 · Robot 01Discarded

    Robot 01, pilot at 75 / 25: the face leans toward editorial photography.

    Pilot 75 % anime / 25 % semi-real
  2. 75 · Robot 02Discarded

    Robot 02, pilot at 75 / 25: the face leans toward editorial photography.

    Pilot 75 % anime / 25 % semi-real
  3. 75 · Robot 03Discarded

    Robot 03, pilot at 75 / 25: the face leans toward editorial photography.

    Pilot 75 % anime / 25 % semi-real
  4. 85 · Robot 01Better

    Robot 01, pilot at 85 / 15: anime eyes, painted skin and clean line art, and the robot keeps its cinematic metal.

    Pilot 85 % anime / 15 % soft semi-real
  5. 85 · Robot 02Better

    Robot 02, pilot at 85 / 15: anime eyes, painted skin and clean line art, and the robot keeps its cinematic metal.

    Pilot 85 % anime / 15 % soft semi-real
  6. 85 · Robot 03Better

    Robot 03, pilot at 85 / 15: anime eyes, painted skin and clean line art, and the robot keeps its cinematic metal.

    Pilot 85 % anime / 15 % soft semi-real

8 attempts

The eight plates of the reel

The eight plates I froze for the animated reel, in the order they play. They are seven series, not eight: robot 01 appears twice, opening and closing.

  1. 1 · Robot 01My pick

    Opens the reel: the rear view.

    Plate 01 · 1536×2730
  2. 2 · Robot 02My pick

    Robot 02.

    Plate 04 · 1536×2730
  3. 3 · Robot 03My pick

    Robot 03.

    Plate 05 · 1536×2730
  4. 4 · Robot 04My pick

    Robot 04.

    Plate 07 · 1536×2730
  5. 5 · Robot 05My pick

    Robot 05.

    Plate 06 · 1536×2730
  6. 6 · Robot 06My pick

    Robot 06.

    Plate 02 · 1536×2730
  7. 7 · Robot 07My pick

    Robot 07. Its file was a quarter of the pixels of the rest, so I rebuilt it from the original PNG.

    Plate 03 · 1536×2730
  8. 8 · Robot 01My pick

    Closes the reel: the front view. Robot 01 opens and closes, so it works as a frame.

    Plate 08 · 1536×2730

What I learned

  1. The pilot drifted toward photography. Going from 75 / 25 to 85 / 15, taking photographic words out of the positive prompt (hyperreal skin, micro-texture, photographic hair) and adding anime eyes, simplified nose and lips, painted skin without pores, clean line art and hair in graphic masses, fixed it.

    Attempts: 75 · Robot 01, 85 · Robot 01, 75 · Robot 02, 85 · Robot 02

  2. The pilot can be anime while the robot stays cinematic. I kept the dimensional finish in the metal, the atmosphere and the depth of field, and only changed the face.

    Attempts: 85 · Robot 01, 85 · Robot 03

  3. A recipe only reaches the robots it was run on. The 85 / 15 batch covers robots 01 to 07; from 08 to 20 there are only the older generations, with the pilot drifting to photography. Today the reel covers a third of the catalog.

  4. Check what you actually froze. Comparing the eight plates with the project’s 300 PNG by image signature showed they all came from the 85 / 15 batch, that one plate had a quarter of the pixels of the others, and that robot 01 appeared twice.

    Attempts: 7 · Robot 07, 1 · Robot 01, 8 · Robot 01

  5. For the animation I settled on short prompts, about 35 words, that describe where things move instead of listing prohibitions.

The next question

What does the recipe give me for robots 08 to 20?

Experiments

The next experiment

006

Flat vector neon

Can a diffusion model give me a flat vector look, and not just something that resembles one?

Open

Follow the lab

Every experiment goes up as it happens: the picked images, the clips in motion and the batches that didn't work.

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