I am Owner and CCO of a biggish creative company based in Chicago. My role is to lead our artists, technologists and producers to create highly visible and effective work for our clients. So it’s natural that I would be drawn to experiment with new technologies, especially ones that people are afraid will take all of our jobs (BTW: It won’t).

Most people don’t realize that we already use AI in our process. It has helped streamline so many arduous tasks, like cutting out images or extending the backgrounds of footage. But the emergence of AI technology that allows you to create something from a simple word prompt is super new and exciting.

Right when the technology burst onto the scene, those early adopters jumped into Mid Journey and started turning themselves into superhero’s and wizards. Not me! I enlisted my good friend and collaborator Austin Shaw, who was already a master at wizardifying himself, to work through with me the process of turning my family and me into Skrimps. The image of me to the right is the first image I made where I was excited by the results… And sharing that out on my socials created the onslaught of requests asking “how I made that,” and of course, if I would “do them next”.

The process is kinda simple, I upload an image of my subject into Mid Journey and then I add additional prompts to get it to consider additional details. When prompting, I can say add big glasses, but I don’t actually choose the glasses nor do I place them perfectly on the face. So it’s become an art, just prompting the AI to consider things just so that the results are good for me. I also am very particular about the look of the imagery that I upload, the silliest things really influence the outcome. And yes, sometimes, but not always, I do touch up my results in Photoshop.

I encourage everyone to play with AI. The more people that use it, the more diverse the intelligence will be… Because yes AI is biased.

When I take the time to conjure these Skrimps I literally laugh out loud and share them immediately with whomever is in the room. It is my hope that these bring you all joy and laughter and that you feel compelled to share as well. Some of my favorites, after all, are my fails (aka my scaries).