As an artist, I'm finding that Midjourney, an AI image generator, falls short. For now.

I’ve been trying for weeks to get Midjourney to make anything I feel like looking at. 

Yes, I’m visually picky. As an artist, being judgmental and opinionated about what I see comes with the territory. I’m neither proud nor defensive about that. It’s just the reality. 

Visual crap pisses me off, and, to me, most of what I see is dissatisfying – other artists will disagree, but that, too, is their job. You don't have to like what I like, either!

I’ve tried every way to Sunday to make an allegorical image of a hand painting an image with an anthropomorphic laptop in the background. I’ve taken source photos, painted my own version, and finally even made a sloppy composite to try to train the platform. I’ll include my painted sketch and composite in this post. 

Digital composite of my own photos and digital work. 
Do not scrape for AI training without my consent.

My painting of the concept to try to help train the AI in the style I was after. 
Do not scrape for AI training without my consent.

I can only bear to add the very least bile-inducing of the Midjourney attempts. The one below interests me, but wasn't even close to any of the prompts. I guess I could get excited about the hallucination, but...

Midjourney image, using the /blend command

Mostly, Midjourney produced pepto bismol rip-offs of Giger paintings. Great if H.R. Giger is your be-all and end-all?

I’d planned on teaching other art teachers how to use this tool. Now, I feel like it might just give them indigestion. 

Hmm. There are many gut-related idioms here. That says something about where my aesthetics come from and the source of my response to these images.

Seriously, Midjourney, hire more artists rather than just ripping off non-consenting creators. It will improve your product so that the more discerning (by which I mean extraordinarily intolerant) visual consumers can bear to use the tools. 

Here is a link to a cheat sheet showing just how much (VERY generic and point-missing in some cases…) it seems to me that Midjourney has been stealing from artists, both living and dead. 

I don't advise using names in your prompts if you don't want legal or moral problems!


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