When we contacted Reddit user u/leodeleao regarding permission to share his work on our webpage, he seemed very friendly! Here's how he introduced himself: "Hi everyone! My name is Leonardo Leão, I'm Brazilian and I've been drawing forever. I have a job in an area unrelated to art, but I have worked doing commissions for RPG characters. I've always enjoyed playing RPG and reading comics."
Leonardo has been enthusiastic about AI-generated images since it first became available: "I had been following many people related to art, RPG illustrators and comic book artists, so as soon as the boom of these [AI] technologies emerged I was aware of it. I had my first contact with AI-generated images in 2020 or 2021, with an app that if I'm not mistaken was called Wombo, but it generated images without much coherence, although the compositions and color palettes were already incredible. That caught my attention and I imagined that in a few years something more refined would emerge, however, the evolution was much faster than I imagined and it is impressive what can be done with 'Midjourney' and other programs. It is certainly a revolution in the way of creating art and it has impacted my way of seeing it a lot. I believe that art is a combination of a will to express something and the technique to concretize that will. What AI does is replace the human technique, now it only takes the will."
But when we asked him what inspired creating Hipster Avengers, this is what he said: "The creation of the Hipster Avengers was inspired by a very popular trend, which is imagining various movies directed by Wes Anderson. His indie aesthetic is very cool and I then thought of creating the characters I love in an approximate version of this aesthetic. It was my first posted work, I was just creating to learn. Using these programs like 'Midjourney' still requires a learning curve and dedication, there is still a big barrier for the machine to interpret the operator's will, but I believe that soon the languages will become more user-friendly and anyone will be able to get interesting results."
Bored Panda knew little about 'Midjourney' and its processes, so we asked Leonardo to share the wisdom he collected on the way: "The current creation process consists of describing the image you want in as much detail as possible. Providing reference images and describing technical terms of photography and cinema are a plus in the process. Then 'Midjourney' provides 4 generated options and from there you can ask for variations on them or restart the process by refining the terms of the prompt. It's still not as simple as some people imagine, which can cause frustration in some users."
We wondered if Leonardo ever felt discouraged as an artist with AI being able to create images in a snap of a finger: "I see a lot of resistance from the artistic community and I think this feeling comes from a legitimate place. It's very complicated to imagine that the technique you've studied and perfected for years is now available to everyone through a machine. Still, I think the subjectivity and sensitivity of the person operating the AI will be differential for the quality of the art generated and even if everyone can use it, the artistic souls will stand out. I think Pandora's box has been opened and the world won't go back, it's much healthier to adapt to the new than to fight against the inevitable use of AI."
