Who’s he? Chris T.!

Making me into a puppet is harder than it sounds.

Last week I shared an AI rendering of Mike Nicolosi (RIP), Nihilistics songwriter and bassist, as a marionette, created to help me visualize a possible NIHILISTIC staged performance:

This was rendered by Google, Gemini’s AI, despite the fact I’m a long-time Adobe Creative Cloud customer and have access to Adobe Firefly, their image and video creator. I didn’t share the Firefly results because I didn’t want you to have marionette nightmares. But here’s a brief video that will haunt you:

Sorry to put you through that.

If you haven’t done much image rendering with AI (and I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t), it largely depends on the reference images you provide, the prompt you write and the rendering engine you use. Here are my Mike reference images:

Here’s the prompt, written with the help of Gemini:

[Core Subject]A detailed, close-up photograph of a professional marionette, sculpted to perfectly capture the features of the man in the image (buzz cut, intense eyes, specific nose shape).[Aesthetic Style]The sculpting style is highly exaggerated, distorted, and angular, blending elements of German Expressionism (deep facial shadows, sharp bone structure) and Gorillaz (Jamie Hewlett) animation (extreme facial proportions, oversized eyes, graphic textures).[Clothing]The marionette is dressed in rugged, miniature work clothes: an unbuttoned, thick, short-sleeved work shirt over a black t-shirt, and heavy-duty, dark-colored chino pants (like Dickies workwear).[Action/Props]The marionette is holding the specific bass guitar seen in image_0.png, and a miniature, unlit cigarette dangle from its exaggerated lips.[Puppet Elements]Clear marionette details are visible: thin control strings are attached to its head, hands, and the guitar, leading upwards into darkness. Visible, simple mechanical joints (ball-and-socket or pin joints) are integrated into its elbows, knees, and fingers.[Lighting]Dramatic, low-key, stark lighting (Chiaroscuro) with heavy shadow-casting, emphasizing the sharp, stylized planes of the sculpted face, and highlighting the difference between the realistic fabric and the exaggerated sculpting.

As you’ve seen, the native Adobe Firefly rendering engine did a terrible job interpreting the provided images and prompt. It wasn’t until I switched to Gemini (and not even the Gemini engine inside Firefly) that I got anything at all useful. Still, I realize how creepy this all is, so I asked what you thought of it all. Here’s the results of that poll:

Thanks to all who voted.

Since 40% of you want to see me as a marionette too, let’s go down another horrifying rabbit hole.

As mentioned, I pay $39.99 for the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, so again I tried Adobe Firefly, using this reference photo:

And this prompt:

Render this person with guitar as a realistic looking marionette.

Okay, so maybe I should’ve elaborated more. The results were less than inspiring:

I mean, WTF? I suppose the face is okay but the woodgrain is making me look quite swarthy. And why did Firefly turn my Ibanez 2350 Les Paul copy into an actual Gibson Les Paul?

I tried a different reference photo:

…with this prompt:

Render this person with guitar as a realistic-looking black & white German Expressionism marionette. Make the figure dramatic.”

And got this:

I suppose it IS black & white.

I gave up on Firefly and went back to Gemini:

Here’s what I got:

And here’s a brief video with the rest of the requested changes and their results:

Let’s call the results “elusive.” If I had to choose one, it would be this, which is still not quite me as a marionette:

This thing is far more handsome than I was back then. Back to the drawing (rendering) board…