Atoning for my AI sins
AKA a hand-drawn introduction to the Triverse
Back in 2022 I was very into Midjourney, for a time. That enthusiasm didn’t last into 2023 and I haven’t used generative AI since, but there are multiple relics in the archive — not least of which is this visual intro to Tales from the Triverse, my weekly serial.
At the time, I thought it might attract new readers. lol.
While all the panel design and layout was hand-crafted, the contents of the panels were initially AI generated before I went over with inking and various other alterations. At the time, I thought it might lead to an interesting hybrid process, but the only real result of experimenting with generative AI was that I did less art. Fewer drawings. I could feel my creativity atrophying.
Anyway, today’s post isn’t about that. Instead, it’s about a fun new sketch I’ve done that sort of recreates that visual intro but without even a hint of AI!
Enjoy, as we journey to Fountain University and meet the hubristic and ill-fated wizard known as Kaenamor…
If you’re intrigued, you can hop into Triverse here:
Tales from the Triverse story index
If you’re looking for my non-fiction writing guides, video tutorials and community discussions, you can find the most popular articles here!
It’s interesting to compare the two versions of the intro.1
The AI one from 2022 is arguably more immediately impactful: richer in colour, detail, scale. I went for a more traditional comic layout as well. But, of course, fast forward to 2025 and we all immediately recognise AI generated images. We can spot them a mile off, and smell the stench. It’s a reflex. While my panel design and overall composition attempted to give the thing some weight and meaning, it never really gets past the severe homogenous mediocrity of the images. The images of towers and laboratories and futuristic cities all look…exactly like you’d expect them to.
The new visual intro, above, is technically simpler. More cartoony. I can’t draw people, so tend to fall back to my ‘big head’ caricatures (literally a wizard in a pointy hat, in this case). There are absolutely parts that are janky and amateurish (I’m not happy with the planets at the bottom, for instance). Bear in mind I’m definitely not an illustrator (if you hadn’t already guessed), so this was very much me having some fun.
The key element for me, though, is that it’s mine. I drew it, for better or worse. It doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks of it as a piece of art, because regardless of technical ability of aesthetic accomplishment it is still doing its main job: to communicate something from my brain to yours. Clunkily, perhaps, but everything in it is 100% me. You’re learning something about me simply by looking at it.
Same goes for when I’m reading something, or looking at a picture, listening to music or watching a video. I want to know that it’s doing that magical thing of indirect telepathy, connecting me to another human on another part of the planet, or perhaps even across time. It’s a way of acknowledging each other’s existence, of reaching across great distances and acknowledging that we are alive. That we lived.
That’s it for today. Don’t worry, I won’t be filling your inboxes with random sketches. But this one mattered to me — it was about correcting a mistake from 2022, and confirming my path.
See you along the road.
I mean, it is for me. YMMV.
Yes! I love this. I also started out hot and heavy with Midjourney, and later on I even wrote an AI-generated novel, but all of it was SO BORING. I don't want to write the computer's story. HOWEVER, it is dead useful for outlines and brainstorms, searches for agents, comparable novels in the genre, etc. I'm back to writing completely on my own, not because I'm against AI, but just because it doesn't feel like "me" to use it in that way. Like I said, boring.
I have no idea about your journey, but I'm taking this Kodak moment of correction and authenticity as a sign to stay true to my path too 😊✨🌞 Thank you so much for sharing! What I see in your sketch is that your art is (or you are) a seamless blend of magic and precision, masculine exploratory energy and soft feminine nurturing undearneath it all, and that your wizard is curious, brave and determined to keep going! Love it!