I recently stepped way out of my comfort zone and took a course in Concept Art. I've never been confident in painterly style digital illustration, but my ability to appreciate a great piece and understand the underlying principles behind a work of Concept Art are really strong. Also strong are my Photoshop skills in producing composite pieces, and image retouching.

So when I saw a course offering a course to create Concept Art using AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, and being a massive geek where new tech is concerned, I jumped straight in.

On this course (given by the very talented Siobhan Twomey), you learn how to utilise all the ways Midjourney can produce art, and you also learn about how best to prompt the AI to get the results you are imagining in your minds' eye. 

I have the same philosophy as Siobhan, in that Ai is a tool that artists can harness the power of, to produce the art, that they (the artist) are imagining. It is unique to each person's input. 

Also, its my personal belief that a good background in Art & Design theory is required to make the most of what Ai art can do, and recognise when the art needs adjusting. It takes further skill to then make those adjustments in programmes like Adobe Photoshop. I do not believe that artists jobs are at risk from people with no background in Art or Design. However I do feel that artists involved in industries where AI tools could be of benefit, should not shy away from it. I'm sure that Graphic Designers were hesitant when Adobe was first launched and look where we are now!

Back to the art. I'm an avid fan of the film, 'The Martian' (2015) and as such I used this was my inspiration behind the following prompt.

My initial prompt (aided by Siobhans' teaching material) was:

"concept art or matte painting of an alien spaceship that has crashed on Mars, with the image of a man standing in an martian landscape with crystal formations, in the style of spatial concept art, style of The Martian concept art, greeble, sharp brushwork, gigantic scale, sharp focus, --ar 16:9 "

I imagined that I was creating concept art for a potential sequel to the Martian, in which unexpected discoveries are made on the planet surface. 

These three images are the result of multiple prompts and adjustments in Midjourney, as well as using Photoshop's generative fill and expand to adjust the layout of each piece. 

All of this was achieved within an hour of doing the course. I actually got so excited about working on the project, that I submitted a project well ahead of finishing the course, instead of submitting as expected at the very end.

We were also taught how to prompt to create a character design to match the theme of the overall project.

The prompt for this character (again, thanks to Siobhans guidance) was: 

"Character pose sheet of a full-body image of a young hero in an intricately designed Martian styled outfit, blending traditional and futuristic and space travel elements, set against a breathtaking Martian backdrop with red sand and ice crystals on elevations. The costume features orange and white tones, metallic accents, a spacesuit with a helmet, weathered armor, and a laser gun, creating an aura of grandeur, mystique, and adventure --ar 16:9"

The end image shown here, was the result of multiple rounds of prompts and adjustments, I chose to go with a more feminine presenting character, as we could always use more of that in my favourite genre Sci-fi! I feel like this end result was an homage to the original film, but updated enough to project that we are now further into the future, in our exploration of mars. 

So thrilled was I with this course, that I promptly created several more images and decided to promote the course on my socials, and blogged about it on my website.

The music clip is from Aaron Hibell's fantastic remix of "Can you hear the music?" by Ludwig Göranssen - titled "Destroyer of Worlds".  

I went and prompt created these after the course, just to experiment with what is possible.