Why AI?
Too Long Don’t Read … and if you do THANK YOU!!
This is the question I get the most or at least I do when I get a question. Mostly often I get people upset in various degrees that AI was used and I did not spend money hiring an artist. My favorite is when I ask them if they are willing to make the art for me, and they are, and I add for FREE since I do this all for free and then suddenly they are not interested and I am back to being a hack and a thief. But what they do not understand is that none of this would have left my mind if it not for AI. Let me back up and talk about my journey with AI and maybe this will help maybe it won’t. But I will feel better about it .. LOL!
Where It All Began
I guess my journey started with rulers and pencils making spaceships mostly because I love Scifi and could not draw a straight line to save my life. When I got a bit older, I had this idea for creating a Christian collectible card game called “The Gospel”.
It was a cool semi-cooperative game where you deployed cards to defeat adversities. It highly encouraged “fellowship” which was working together cooperatively to help others defeat adversities. It was fun. I had a lot of friends love it. But I could not get it off the ground.
The art of this was primarily done with 3D software. Bryce 3D from back in the day to be precise. And I loved creating with that because I could take an idea and make it a reality … within limits. I did also use Poser and later DAZ 3D for people. But the thing I loved is finally something in my head could make it to paper so to speak. But this never went anywhere. Interestingly I was told by a person in the game publishing market circa 2001 I think that no one would be interested in a cooperative game let alone a Christian one. Today cooperative games make over 10% of all games created and christian gaming is on the rise. You could say I was ahead of my time.
I have thought of re-doing this with a modern take. The key is the game as it stood was great for late 1990s and very early 2000s. Today with all the games and mechanics and such out there it would be very dated. I would have to update it a bunch which I still might do but I have put it on the back burner.
What Was Next?
Making the game was a ton of fun but like a thousand hours worth of work. When I could not get it off the ground I tried a few other things like making a Stargate Card Game with screen captures from the actual show episodes. I made two starter decks to play and had the rules created and use Bryce to create the piping for the card layout.
I thought it was clever and fun and the very few who played it loved it. But for an IP (Intellectual Property which means owned by someone) to even have a chance to produce you needed to get the license. I reached out to MGM who held (and I presume still does) the license and through a long process was eventually denied. I received a very nice cease and desist letter.
So I thought since I am unable to do the image art and this was before connecting with people online was easy I would find another style of IP where I would most likely get the images which was Star Wars Fan Files. Using this same approach and re-designing the entire card and then using images from fan films where I got permission to use them, I started down a new row for creating. The “Fandom Rising” was taking form.
This was going to be awesome and there was a period where fan films were hailed and lauded even by George Lucas but that was before the dark times .. before the animated shows and then Disney.
I actually love the animated shows. But it was around that time that quietly the fan film awards disappeared and fan films began getting cease and desist letters. I was informed of this and had to stop making the game. So it went away. Another project down the drain.
Discovery and What Was My Love
This brought me to a place where I had to do some self evaluation. What was it I loved? Was it making games? Was it creating cards? Was it creating stories? Was it creating worlds? I had to look at myself and decide what was God’s giftings in me and work out from there. It took a while but I discovered that my talent is creative writing. I love to build out worlds and then write things into that world. I wrote a full novel (175k words) and began the process of having it edited. I used an editor breaking it into seven parts and self published the first part on June 14, 2011.
The book “sold” 774 copies (770 were doing a free weekend so sold is a loose term) and I paid for some reviews that were favorable. The couple that reached out wanted to know when the rest of the story was coming. But then I had a falling out with my then editor and did not continue. Since then, I have found some errors in the book and will be correcting them in the future and just putting out the whole thing at once. Or at least I will have the whole thing finished and still might produce it as 7 parts. But because of the falling out I began looking for another editor and prices were crazy and I did not have the money. So it has gone to the backlog.
Enter Non-Fiction
Being a strong Christian, I am always praying about what to do. It was at this point, I felt God tell me to do something I would have never ever thought to do on my own and that was to write a non-fiction book. WHAT?!?! I mean who reads non-fiction. Never mind that I worked at a bookstore and know that non-fiction sales collectively outsell fiction. But what did I know. It just seemed like worlds away. I mean who would want to read something I was talking about instead of a fictional world I put a story in. But I was faithful. The first book I wrote was a guide on parenting called “Leading from the Floor” which meant leading from a place of prayer. I got that book finished and worked hard to try and get it edited and on top of that also try to get an agent to promote my book. This is when I learned that the entire publishing market is rigged against you. The only way an agent would even consider reading my treatise or my manuscript was not based on the topic but based on if I had a big enough social media platform. Mind you this was circa 2018. And I needed to have at least a hundred thousand followers across multiple platforms or have a well known name (like T.D. Jakes or something). I was a touch deflated but figured if I finished the book maybe I would get sales.
This was a journey and a half. One editor started with me and six months later left. Another editor took money and never got back to me. A third editor took money and did read the book because she spoke about it but got ill and had family issues (that could be independently verified) and could not finish. She offered to send the money back but I felt like she should keep it. But all of that took years before I was sitting there asking God what to do. He replied with you heard I want you to write a non fiction book but you did not hear what? So I asked and he told me to write a testimony book.
Enter AI
God told me to make a testimony book and I did. I got all the testimonies I could think of at the time and put them in one large volume. 53 testimonies and 150k words or there abouts. My friend from a long time back who was a missionary was back in the states and he is an english major. I reached out to him about editing the book for me and he agreed. I told him even though we are friends I am going to pay you because God told me to do everything right. I hired an artist who sketched out what I had in a vision and he did a great job. However, one person looked at the cover and said it looked like an Indiana Jones adventure book and he was right. Now that was all I could see. I went back to my artist, whom I did pay, and asked for help. He agreed but then had health issues. That left me with three choices, wait, pay for another artist (which I really did not have the cash for), or turn to AI. So I turned to AI and began work on a prompt to create the idea I had in my head. WOW, did I learn how difficult it can be to work with AI and why prompt engineering is becoming a fastly growing field.
It literally took me over 100 iterations of the prompt each making 4 images at a time to get one that I could finally use and even then I had to use photoshop to clean up artifacts. Fortunately, photoshop has a cool feature where you can lasso and area and tell it to remove the artifact and it does. That got me to my final cover and from there I was self publishing my first non fiction book which went like on March 4, 2024.
For my first use of AI, I used Adobe Firefly because it claims that it has permission for every image it uses. I have learned that they have some liberties on that and have had some people upset about them. But it got me a cover that was what I wanted. I put the book out there and had this false idea that if I publish it sales will come and by the droves. Nope. I have to date, “sold” 88 copies (of which 71 were during free weekends so not really “sold”). I asked God how to market it and his response was “Your job is to sow .. my job is the harvest.” From that I began sowing/giving away copies of the book. I have given away I think it is close to 250 copies. If anyone asks, and as long as I have the cash to do so, I will send them a copy. No questions asked. No wondering if they can buy it themselves. Just give it away.
A Dark Time
When you are a creative person, you create for two reasons. First because you love creating. Second because you want people to enjoy your creation. When they do not or they do not even receive it because you can not find ways to get it out there it really hurts deep. Think of it like this. How does a star Basketball player feel without a game. How does an A list actor/actress feel without any movies or if they poured themselves into a movie and no one watches it (and I am not speaking about tons watch it and call it bad that is a whole other thing). Or a painter that has no canvas or a house full of paintings he can’t seem to get into a gallery or people’s hands. It hurts. And if you are not an artistic or creative type you may not understand this hurt. But it is deep. And it does make you question whether you should continue. There is a saying about making art for arts sake. But even that falls when no one sees the art. And that is how I was feeling. It did not help that the supposed people around me (like my church) was not supportive and instead called putting the book out there a “pipe dream” which is a slang for will never amount to anything and you should not put any time an energy into it.
Couple this with the loss of my job and a period where we had to file for bankruptcy essentially lose just about everything and have to move in with my daughter and son-in-law where I as a man and husband and father could feel like nothing but a failure, you can begin to see my pain. It was so bad at one point I was seriously considering suicide. But that is a topic for another day. What gave me solace was the ability to create images with AI from my mind. I loved it. With that I began to create a new card game with a hugely deep lore loosely rooted in the bible and history and yet still a cool battler.
Hallowed is a new game idea that will have players working cooperatively to help essentially save humanity. I think it is a great concept. I have built out the world the game is in. I have built out the rules. I have a bunch of lore. And I started making cards. When I shared it online the amount of hate I got for using AI was overwhelming and surprising. I thought we had been moving in an AI assisted world where AI is a common tool used by many to do many things. But while that might still happen we are soooooo not there yet. With all the hate, I put the game down for the moment. This was mostly because I really need to figure out how to balance the cards so but also because of the hate for AI. I am sure I will return to it. But for the moment, it is in the backlog.
At this time I began to use AI with Obsidian and Dropbox to create a way to store my notes on the worlds I am building. I have several items in the pipeline in the works for things to come.
The Webcomic
About two months ago, a cute thing happened between my wife and I and I made a little script and put it on facebook. A bunch of people liked and laughed along with us. And suddenly, I believe it was God, I had an idea. Could I make this a comic. I went to ChatGPT and asked and sure enough it could. The first image was good but not great. You can read about “My Journey”. But as soon as I saw it was possible, I started being flooded with tons of things that could be part of a series of web comics based around my family. Things we have shared with others and some where others have been like “Man I hope we are as in love as you guys when we get old.” And I was off.
My hope was that people would see the comic and look past the AI art and any of its things (like backgrounds changing from panel to panel when no one moved) and see the humor and laugh and have a good time. But that is not the experience. SO far, when I share a comic, I get a couple of likes and anywhere from half a dozen to three dozen comments of AI hate. Ones that do not just attack the art used but my person as well. I get called all kinds of names by people who do not understand a lot of things. I am called a thief but AI does not steal it collects images to learn and creates a new one from that much like an art student studies art so he can create the painting of a bowl of fruit. I get told I am stealing money from people (or food from the mouths of families) only I do not have the cash (remember the bankruptcy) to pay for an artist so if no AI then no comic. And when I ask them if they are willing to work with me for free since I am doing it for free … well the names they use I will not type here. All because I am a creative person independently creating out here unable to afford what a big studio can just trying to put out my creativity for people to enjoy.
What Does the Future Hold
I would be lying if I said I was disheartened some by all the hate. But I am moving on. I am not stopping. I created the Love78Studios a division of Love78 LLC to help me promote what I make embracing AI while growing and learning. My current plan is to render and schedule out the entire next year through December 2027 publishing a comic every Monday (currently scheduled out to June) and then take some time to try and learn to use Clip Studio Paint to create the comics myself. The advantage is full control and no re-rendering endlessly with tweaking to get the right image. The disadvantage is that it will take a certain amount of talent that I do not know if I possess. Think of it like this, I can train twelve hours a day every day for years and still never be NBA talent because I just lack certain style of skills. So just trying is not enough. But I am hoping that maybe deep down there is some untapped talent. And if that be the case, then my superhero comic idea will be a comic and not a novel.
However, whether or not I can draw things myself I am going to continue to use AI because if nothing else it works as a great sounding board. I can ask it if I missed something or to question my information or just evaluate it and it will give me all kinds of information and help. That does not count using it for AI Art. So I find it an invaluable tool that I will continue to keep using.
As a writer/creative thinker/world builder/etc, here are some of the ways that I am using (and will continue to use) AI to help with:
Using AI as a creative collaborator rather than just a generator — brainstorming together, disagreeing, revising, experimenting, throwing away failures, keeping what works, and iterating until an idea becomes something real.
Brainstorming ideas — taking a half-formed thought and talking it through until it becomes something usable.
Challenging my ideas — asking AI to find weaknesses, inconsistencies, problems, or alternatives instead of simply agreeing with me.
Building fictional Universe Guides — defining history, cultures, factions, terminology, rules, locations, technology, magic/power systems, and lore.
Creating Character Guides — personalities, histories, relationships, motivations, visual designs, costumes, expressions, poses, and character reference sheets.
Creating comic artwork — taking finished scripts and visual references and generating the actual comic panels.
Building comic production guides — Series Bibles, character guides, expression sheets, pose sheets, location guides, camera references, color/style guides, and continuity contracts.
Troubleshooting AI artwork — figuring out why characters, rooms, cameras, clothing, props, backgrounds, or layouts drift between generations and refining prompts/guides to improve consistency.
Developing an AI-assisted comic production pipeline — including the Obsidian “Comic IDE” idea where clean scripts, character/location modules, and rules can eventually compile into renderer-ready instructions.
Exploring animation and motion comics — investigating how comic panels could become shorts with movement, camera motion, voices, music, and sound effects.
Creating book covers — including Altars of Living Stones and concepts for future books.
Creating promotional artwork — banners, posters, social-media graphics, website graphics, Patreon graphics, thumbnails, ads, and project showcases.
Building studio branding — developing the visual identity and promotional material for Love78 Studios and its individual projects.
Developing Hallowed — designing the card game, characters, card abilities, terminology, mechanics, factions, balance concepts, card layouts, and artwork.
Creating Hallowed card art — visually developing characters such as Caleb, Merric, Kaelira, Selene, Caj Onee, and others.
Developing future fictional projects — including The Song of the Stars, The Blood of the Vykron, The Unseen War, and other Love78 projects.
Developing the Ember's Calling superhero universe — characters such as Lady Victory, the Patron, the Architect, the Sovereign, Chaos Bloom, the Shadow Force, and The Rise of Shadows.
Designing superhero characters — costumes, symbols, powers, visual identities, character posters, and relationships between heroes and villains.
Writing nonfiction Christian books — organizing concepts, chapters, themes, arguments, illustrations, and supporting ideas.
Developing Altars of Living Stones — exploring the biblical concept, organizing material, and creating related imagery and promotional material.
Developing Candles Without Flames — exploring ideas surrounding the Church Jesus built versus what Christianity can become institutionally.
Deep Bible study — examining passages in context, comparing Scripture with Scripture, exploring original historical settings, and testing theological interpretations.
Discussing theology — working through eschatology, ecclesiology, biblical symbolism, Revelation, Daniel, the Kingdom of God, and other subjects while allowing my assumptions to be challenged.
Developing music styles — defining instrumentation, vocal arrangements, tempo, atmosphere, song structure, and production prompts for AI music generation.
Creating album and single artwork — visually interpreting individual Scripture songs and establishing a consistent album style.
Migrating old creative archives — converting years of poems, songs, and other writing from TiddlyWiki/TiddlyHost into an Obsidian-friendly format.
Building an Obsidian knowledge base — organizing creative projects, scripts, research, family history, lore, and reference material into interconnected notes.
Researching major purchases and decisions — comparing options, identifying overlooked concerns, organizing pros/cons, and helping me think through decisions rather than making them for me.
Researching products, software, and services — comparing tools based on what I actually need rather than just reading feature lists.
Evaluating AI creative tools — testing ChatGPT, OpenArt, ToonBee, and other approaches to see which parts of my creative workflow they can realistically handle.
Software-development help — troubleshooting Java, Python, PySpark, environment/configuration problems, build issues, and other development questions.
Thinking through software architecture — discussing how systems could be designed before investing the time to actually build them.
Data conversion and automation — writing or designing scripts to transform information from one format/system into another.
Website development and publishing strategy — organizing Squarespace sites, project pages, comic archives, release schedules, and how the different Love78 properties fit together.
Developing Patreon — tiers, names, benefits, artwork, early-access strategy, and how Patreon fits alongside the public website.
Marketing without turning everything into marketing — creating promotional copy, banners, descriptions, taglines, and posts while trying to preserve the actual heart of the projects.
Turning giant ideas into actionable pieces — taking something that initially feels impossibly large and breaking it into stages that can actually be completed.
Keeping me focused — recognizing when an exciting new idea should become part of the current project versus when it belongs in the “great idea, but later” pile.
Creating reusable project documentation — capturing decisions so I don't have to reinvent the same rules every time I return to a project.
And more. It has been quite the aid.
So Why Do I Use AI?
Ultimately, I use AI because as a tool it has become invaluable in helping me not only stay on track but also to fill holes in ideas that I have by questioning or challenging my ideas. I find it to be quite the collaborator like an assistant I can ask to go and get XYZ done for me and it does. Also, I am certain AI is here to stay so embracing it is the best way to move forward.
