Generative AI continues to amaze me! I’ve been experimenting a bit for a few years, and the pace of evolution is astonishing.

Back in 2021, I immersed myself in Pix2Pix and StyleGAN2-ADA, training models on thousands of carefully crafted image pairs to identify edge contours and color blocks, transforming them into vivid imageries. Inspired by Egon Schiele’s bold lines and emotive portraits, I used some of his sketches as my experimental canvas. Despite long cloud-based training sessions (72+ hours!) and unpredictable results, the potential was clear.

Now, in 2024, I’ve resumed this journey using a local setup with pre-trained model checkpoints like Dreamshaper(SD1.5), Epicrealism (SD1.5), and Flux1.1. The difference is extraordinary! Running complex generative tasks locally on my laptop feels surreal compared to just a few years ago. See the video below.

Next on my horizon is exploring ControlNet and fine-tuning pre-trained models with my own custom materials.