I am working on a series of pAIntings of deep sea creatures. I am trying a different way to use AI style transfer (deepdreamgenerator.com DeepStyle v2) here - each of these started as a quick painting from a reference image, then I ran the painting through deep style using the same reference image I used for the painting as the style image in the style transfer.

My goal with the quick paintings isn't to make them look realistic to a human eye, rather I am trying to capture the variation in texture and color in the reference image such that when I run deepstyle, the AI applies realistic colors & textures from the reference image in the right place of the painting so that the end result is realistic.

Some of these came out amazingly close to the reference image in terms of realistic textures, others not so much - but they were all fun!

Dragonfish

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Brittlestar

This one is probably the most realistic in terms of the end result being extremely close to the original reference image both in form, texture & color.

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Jellyfish

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Octopus

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Viperfish

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Jellyfish Mutant

For this one I didn't try to re-create the form of the reference image, instead I painted a kinda-sorta-face jellyfish thing. But I did use the same technique of trying to capture the variation in color & texture from the base image, and this experiment turned out pretty cool!

Above is the raw AI generated deepstyle output using my painting as base image and reference image as style image

Process shot below - note I do not own the reference image on the left, just including here as fair use in demonstrating my process. Reference image on left, my quick paint on right - the quick paint was used as the base image in the style transfer process, with the reference image as the style image.

Stay weird Hive! Catch ya on the deep side!