Wings In the Sky - How I Utilized Fractal Art With Gaugan AI Digital Drawing : The Gaugan IA Contest on Hive - Week 62 No. 2

For my digital drawing scene today, I chose an alien art project. When working with the digital art programs, sometimes you don't know where the brushstrokes for the different features will take you. It may be a good drawing, or one in which you want to erase the canvas and start over.

The amazing aspect of the digital drawing programs is that you can't tell which features work well together at first. It takes numerous times incorporating different elements.

I'm working with three (3) different programs for this drawing:

• Apophysis 2.09 fractal art drawing program.
• Canva drawing program; and
• Nvidia AI Drawing program

Apophysis 2.09

Apophysis is a type of digital art program that is an open source fractal flame editor for Microsoft Windows. It generates fractal art. I really hadn't heard of fractal art. After researching the subject, I found out that a fractal drawing is a geometric shaped image based on a algorithm.

^{Image by Oni Lukos at English Wikipedia-Own work, GPL,}

Since I had to download the program, I haven't yet figured out how to capture a screenshot of the entire program with the options. The different options I choose and settings will indicate different phases of the fractal in a step-by-step display.

In the program I created a beautiful fractal drawing of a wing utilizing a tutorial. I utilized the X, Y, and O coordinates for each triangle (or transform). Then I moved the transforms on the grid to create the image below.

Canva

The next program I utilized was Canva. It's a drawing program also, but mostly utilizes photos you upload and manipulate, such as making collages.

I uploaded my Apophysis drawing of the beautiful wing. I only wanted to duplicate it to place the other wing on the opposite side before continuing with my digital drawing.

Nvidia Gaugan

The Nvidia Gaugan Artificial Intelligence drawing program that allows you to paint brushstrokes on a blank canvas and the program will interpret those brushstrokes into an image.

Before working with the program, you have to:

Check the box below the drawing screen to you agree to the terms and conditions set out underneath the box.

The program is now available for input.

The program starts with a BLANK canvas that consists of two features:

1. the SKY (top - pastel green); and
2. the SEA (bottom - light blue).

If you click the 👉 ARROW in the middle of the screen, then look to the right-hand side of the canvas, you'll see the program's interpretation of the sky and water feature.

With each new drawing or erasing of the canvas, you'll get a different sky and sea color to start. Which colors you randomly receive can affect how your drawing will look.

Next, I uploaded my beautiful fractal art drawing of the wing from above into the Nvidia Gaugan digital drawing program. I wanted to see how Nividia Gaugan handled it.

Notice at the bottom of the Gaugan screen in the middle entitled Upload Landscape Image, you can see where I uploaded my Apophysis Fractal Drawing from above "Apophysis2.09-Wing DrawingDuplicated.png".

Just click on BROWSE to find your image. Then click UPLOAD.

Once my fractal art wing image uploaded, the colors on the left hand side of the canvas displays how the Nvidia Gaugan program interpreted the image and created the brushstroke patterns. The pattern is called a Segmentation Map.

Now, I have my fractal art as my starting point to add to my unique sky and sea that Gaugan provided.

To see my visual image of the wings, click the right ARROW.

I want the wings to be separated, so I'm going to remove the connecting feature color between them by inserting the color of the background.

Since I'm not sure if the color is the sky in the feature color palette, I'll copy the background color by utilizing the DROPPER tool (4th tool on the left hand side).

1. click on the DROPPER;
2. click on color feature on the canvas you want copied. notice your mouse will turn to a vertical arrow;
3. click on the brush tool. You'll see the color change in the top of the MENU next to Fill/brush color
4. click on the brushstroke tool and apply the canvas.

Notice the color connecting the two wings look like the background color. The wings are no longer separated.

It's completely fine if the shapes are not perfect. This is Alien Art, so we want it to look mysterious.

Now comes the fun part.

Let's add some different features to the alien wings to see what we'll get.

I'll start from the bottom and work upwards this time.

FIRST, let's add some Water. Click on the Sea feature. Then click on the brush toop and apply the brushstroke to the canvas. Try drawing different shape patterns instead of a straight line.

Next, fill in the Sea color with the paint bucket tool.

Let's see how the program interprets adding the SEA feature. Click on the right ARROW in the middle of the Gaugan screen.

Look at the beautiful pattern that emerged in both wings after adding a water feature.

NEXT, let's add a Hill feature. Click on Hill, then use the paintbrush to paint a section on the canvas.

Finally, let's add some clouds to the sky. Click the Clouds feature, then click on the paint bucket to spray the top a gray color. Then click the right ARROW.

Doesn't look like the sky changed that drastically. However, when you add the background filters and effects, they will develop into some awesome interpretations.

SO, I wanted to add some more features for drama.

Here's what I did next, and you can do it to any drawing in which you don't like the results:

1. Added some rocks in the sea bed; color brown
2. Changed water to a river. color is now purple;
3. Dropped the hills below the wings; and
4. Added more depth to the clouds.

Click the right ARROW.

Wow, what an amazing transformation for the alien art.

I feel as though I've finally achieved the alien art I was hoping for.

^{Image created by @justclickindiva utilizing Nvidia GauGAN}

And below are the final Brushstrokes for the drawing:

^{Image created by @justclickindiva utilizing Nvidia GauGAN}

Now, I can utilize all the backgrounds and filters to change to different colors and get a variety of dynamics to the drawing. I can save the ones that are not too dark to outline the images I want to portray.

Below are a few of them:

Let me know what you think about the Gaugan IA program and my attempt at producing digital art.