Years ago, I fooled around with the tools that were available to make illustrations for stories. They were klugey and involved creating elaborate scenes with paper doll style figures.
Now, the AI has advanced so much that you can use natural language to make AI pictures that perfectly enhance your stories.
However, most sites don't allow NSFW, and those that do have limitations. There isn't one super site that makes everything I want.
It's been a real learning process and I am enjoying illustrating my stories as much as writing them. I look forward to adding pictures that will enhance scenes for the viewer without violating any of the TOS rules (as an example, I do not think I can show beastiality or anything TOO graphic, so I don't even try). Instead, I try to give the inference of what's happening in the scenes to evoke thoughts and imagination.
https://storiesonline.net/n/33623/nis-breeder-program/32
Case in point, the latest chapter of the NIS Breeder story. I wanted a picture of a happy, healthy, well-adjusted nordic family that just likes being nude. I wanted their house to look modern, but have Swedish hints of their rural heritage and interest in wood crafting etc.
I wanted the daughters to look like their mother, and the parents to look much younger than their real age. I think I fucking nailed it!!
However, I didn't just go to one super-site that does it all, type in a scene and boop-burp it came out looking like that.
I have four sites I use now. One that just exclusively does upscale and inpainting to repair the fix oddities in the pictures. Originally, the man had no dick, hands were fucked up, the youngest sister was missing her shock collar, etc.
My process is this:
1. Dream it up - pick one scene in my story that I can blow up into a picture.
2. Write a prompt that works
3. Select a Lora, Model, and make about 30-40 pictures with it, adjusting as I go until I find the right one.
4. Upscale it
5. Inpaint out the imperfections
6. Manually edit to adjust things, blur things, sharpen things, add/edit with paint.net
7. Add a caption that summarizes it.
That's the basics, I'll talk about it.
I started with one site that lets me use "Lora" to define the picture. A Lora can make it look like a person, or add things to the picture like a crowd.
An example is in chapter 31, I wanted a line of high school students waiting behind the booth. I have a lora that added that. It tells the AI "Here are some extra resources to use in this picture"
Then I have to use a model. Not every site has the same models. The model is sort of the basic operating system the AI uses to make the picture. Some models will make it photo realistic, some will make it look like anime, or some art style.
Many of my earlier AI pictures were limited to artist style, but increasingly I am making them more and more photo realistic, or at least high quality art.
I don't just take the first picture. I make many, sometimes 30-40 pictures before I am satisfied.
You have to fidget with two dials:
CFG is a value from 1-15. You can go over 15 but it's not recommended and I never have. 1 means AI should be as creative as it wants. 15 means "follow my prompt" as closely as possible.
It may seem like you are just typing in what you want to see, but Prompting is it's own art form/kung fu sort of like coding. You can get the same results with different prompts, but learning how to get those results takes practice. The prompt language is natural "Imagine a red headed mature woman who is naked standing in front of an ice cream stand." for instance.
However, you can also use something like (1girl), (red hair), (big boobs), (nude), ((naked)), daytime, standing in front of an ice cream stand, suburbs.
And that's where the creativity comes in. I'll try variations, and combinations.
I'll usually keep the other dial low at first. That's called "Cycles". At a minimum you want 20. It's what tells the AI how hard to work on giving what you want. You eat up points or tokens when you are working on these, and those cost money (or you can earn them free but it's worth it to just subscribe. It's really not that expensive for a basic tier).
The AI will try to evolve the picture 20 times to give you what you want.
When I am ready for the final product, I'll crank it to 40-50 to get what I want. Originaly, I left this value alone.
There are other nobs and dials you can use, such as the VAE. This is the "Encoder". I really couldn't tell you too much about it. I keep that basically the default. However, different ones act as a regulator for the model.
Then there is "face fix" or "adetailer" or whatever the site calls something that goes in and tries to check things like hands. For whatever reason, AI is really stupid when it comes to hands. It's a known issue. Using those burns more points, but it's sometimes worth it to turn it on.
Anyway, I have about 30-40 pictures that I might have used for every picture I post, some of which are bad ass, but they just don't work. A great example is in NIS Breeder, there is a point where I am showing the NIS Program in Japan. I went with everyone's butts facing the camera, and the teacher standing on a pedestal teaching.
Some of the pictures were great, but ultimately I chose that one. It sucks, because there are so many I want to share with you. However, I also don't want to bomb my story with nothing but illustrations so I try to keep it to usually one picture per chapter, and no more than 3 per chapter.
Once I have that selected, I usually upscale it and start inpainting. That's where you tell the AI to make it look better. In the early days, I didn't know how to do it, so the background will be much fuzzier.
The AI will go through and make everything look more detailed.
Unfortunately, sometimes TOO detailed, and over produced. I have to play with settings there as well. It may make the woman's butt look too dimpled and wrinkled, for instance as it makes real skin instead of the more idealized smooth skin. It'll put freckles, moles, etc.
So, then once I have the upscaled picture, still not done. I start "in painting". Let's say it added pubic hair where I didn't want the character to have any. I may circle that area and tell it to get rid of it. I have to adjust the strength of the AI and inpainting to how subtle the change needs to be and check it. I may have to do that a few times. It will sometimes draw a dick where a pussy should be, or make two heads instead of one.
After a few inpaintings, then I go in and shrink the picture down to a smaller resolution so it doesn't dominate the screen.
I start adding my own touches. Usually, it's so subtle you won't notice, and that's the point. However, if you look closely you may see an NIS logo added to a sticker, or the actual name of the high school. I put Japanese words on the chalk board, and made it look like chalk writing.
The chances someone speaks Japanese looking at my picture is probably not high, but it's an easter egg just for them, I guess.
In one picture, I tried to add a Rottweiler chasing the big titty woman down the road as she jogged in the nude.
However, the AI only gave me cute, fuzzy, lovable dogs. I changed the story a little to account for her THINKING the dog was going to bite her ass, when in reality it wasn't.
I also try to give every picture a caption that summarizes the action.
I don't bother with logos or watermarks and stuff to claim the picture as my own. If it gets shared on a porn site or something, that's awesome. I don't care if I get credit. However, I DO NOT SHARE THESE ELSEWHERE.
The only place you'll see this work (if I post it) is on SOL. I haven't found a site better than this one. I've posted some of my stuff on Literotica, and other sites. Fan Fiction is often looked down upon here, but other sites are DEDICATED to fan fiction, so I put it there.
However, I have found no site that is as responsive, or makes it as easy for an author as SOL. I feel appreciated here by the admins, and I like it. I am almost 100% exclusively on this site.
I wanted to share all that with you, because I thought you may be interested in how the sausage is made. It's not just "Go to site and magic".
As I learn more and more, you'll see better and better quality in my stories. I'd imagine there are some people who don't even bother with my writing and just look at the dirty pictures.
To them I say "I don't give a fuck, do whatever you enjoy."
However, I like to think that if the sizzle of the pictures pulls you in and you'd like to understand the context of the scenario behind them, then you'll stay for the story.
I won't provide the links to these sites in my blog. I don't think Lajeez wants us linking other sites. However, if you are truly interested in farting around with AI I can help you get started just like I did by suggesting a site that I found made the process super easy.
It's also very affordable, around 10 bucks a month (USD) for a subscription, so it's worth the price of a cheese burger just to see if you like it and not have to be stingy with points.