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Bing Image Creator Tries Drawing Magical Girl Pretty Dynamo

I think this will be my last post on this subject at least for a while, lest this simply turn into a blog of AI-generated art, but I want to report on what happened when I tried to get Bing to produce images of the protagonist from Jake and the Dynamo.

I did this in two different sessions and got very different results each time, though I notice certain similarities running throughout. This isn’t exactly scientific, so I can’t tell you the exact prompts I used, but each one was a variation or slight modification of this:

Skinny ten-year-old electricity-themed magical girl, powder puff tutu, blue and gold breastplate, blue and gold metal boots, bare midriff, simple gold tiara, long blue pigtails, green eyes, holding shield and spear, motif of heart with lightning bolt through it appearing on shield and armor, riding a flying snowboard over an Art Deco city.

I got hit by the “dangerous content” warning inconsistently and seemingly at random, though it appeared more often if I specified either “photorealistic” or “anime-style.” Undoubtedly, the young age of the character is what was triggering it.

I also found it absolutely cannot draw a young girl in fantasy armor. Almost every generation came out looking like a teenager or adult, and almost every one of them was busty with armor designed to accent her cleavage. This is no doubt because of the fantasy art on which the generator has been trained.

Pretty Dynamo as adult
“Photorealistic” Dynamo.

It did, early on, try to make child-like characters, but they inevitably came out as oppai lolis, some of which were rather disturbing. I tried to tweak the prompt to stop that from happening, but it either made no difference or hit me with the “dangerous content” warning again. The generator does not recognize operators like no or not or the minus sign. Ironically, I was trying to tone the resulting images down, but that made the problem worse.

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‘Jake and the Dynamo,’ the Paperback

We have here the paperback edition of Jake and the Dynamo, currently available both at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, with additional buying options forthcoming.

Jake and the Dynamo paperback spine.
A view of the spine.
As you can see, this edition has a wraparound cover. Amazon, for whatever reason, requires an upload of the cover as a single image even though other print-on-demand services will allow you to upload the cover piecemeal. So a wraparound works best anyway.

Comparison of the two covers of Jake and the Dynamo.
The first and second versions.
Here you can see a side-by-side comparison of the two versions. The first is the original from Superversive Press, now sadly defunct, and the second is the new, currently available edition from Girls at Work. Both cover illustrations have points to commend them, but I’m particularly fond of the second one because it captures the iconic image of Jake and Dana I’ve always had in my head. I think I’ve described that picture to three artists, and this guy finally got it right.

Comparison of the book interiors.
A comparison of the interiors.
Although we might weigh the pros and cons of the covers, the interior of the new version is unquestionably superior, as you can see in the image above if you will excuse my photography. I have provided a slightly larger font and a larger line height for improved readability. The font and line spacing are both bigger than the standard recommendations for Amazon print-on-demand paperbacks, similar to what you might expect in a traditionally published hardcover.

Jake and the Dynamo interior.
A full view of the interior.
Because this edition has gone through a final and thorough revision, the text is considerably shorter, but because of the improved layout, the page count is considerably larger. The original Jake and the Dynamo ran to 382 pages, but the new version is 412 pages. No material has been removed, only improved.

Interior illustration.
An interior illustration.
All of the interior illustrations from Roffles Lowell, including chapter headings and sections breaks, are present in the new version. I have no control over their final quality, of course, but they look to me to be comparable to, perhaps even slightly improved on, the original version. I have added captions to the full-page illustrations, something I always wanted them to have. I have also moved all of them to the chapter ends simply because it is next to impossible to prevent them from cutting the text off in odd places otherwise. The eBook version, of course, has full-color images.

Art

Featured image: Unknown title and artist, originally found on Loveydoveship.

Have yourself some Shugo Chara! fan art. Alas, this image has been shared so much across the interwebs that I have failed to trace it to its source. It’s a depiction of the protagonist Amu in her four magical forms. In any case, if you are interested in the title, don’t miss my review.

Featured Art by Pearlpencil

Featured art: “My Everyday My HiME -Feb 16- Sketch of Mikoto” by Pearlpencil.

I am still watching My-HiME, so today’s featured art is of one of the show’s main characters. At the moment, I don’t have much else to report. Life is busy but in a good way, as you might expect, as the magical girl and I are preparing for our first baby.

Featured Art by limandao

Featured image: “Mai-HiME” by limandao.

I just started watching My-HiME, which came out in , a signature year for magical-girl anime, seeing as how it also saw the release of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Pretty Cure. My-HiME did all right for itself, producing some spin-offs, though I don’t think it had quite the same impact as Nanoha or especially Pretty Cure, which became a commercial juggernaut.

All three of these shows upped the amount of violent action typical of the genre and did it for three different demographics: Pretty Cure was shoujo, Nanoha was seinen, and My-HiME was shounen.

The opening episode of My-HiME is certainly promising, with a creative action set-piece and some excellent animation.

In any case, I’ll talk about it when I finish it. It’s considerably longer than the last show I reviewed, and my current schedule does not give me a lot of extra time for TV, but I’ll do what I can.

Art by @oregaihanboshi

Featured art: “Magical Girl Natsuki Is Here to Deliver Cupcakes” by @oregaihanboshi.

Art: ‘Magical Girl She-ra’ by Weremole

Featured art: Magical Girl She-ra by Weremole. Check out the rest of his artwork.

Art

Featured image: The White Devil by DreamEater Merry.

Art by DelianaM

Featured image: “Miraculous” by DelianaM.

Art by Lighane

Featured image: “Magical Girl OC” by Lighane

I am still out and about on my Christmas vacation, though I will be returning home shortly after the start of the new year, and then I’ll be able to return to more substantial posting. In the meanwhile, I’m still working my way through polishing and updates for the blog, including structured data and microdata for all the posts.