Marking the Occasion

In general MidJourney is extremely bad at likenesses. It’s not bad at mapping names to approximate types, but tends to completely miss all the subtle identity cues that humans are so optimised to recognise, producing images that look like people, but very much not the people requested. Occasionally, though, someone can be such an absolutely fucking relentless self-publicist that photos of them from every conceivable angle in almost every conceivable setting seem to have managed to infest the training set, such that the model is actually pretty good at deepfaking them.

So it is with our ex-PM, now also ex-MP, may he rot in Hell for all eternity.

For work reasons not worth describing I recently had occasion to confect a bunch of fake Borises. Most of the following I didn’t wind up using, on account being a bit too silly — so, lucky reader, you get the pleasure instead.

Boris Johnson’s dungeons and dragons group suffer a catastrophic defeat in the lost caverns of Tsojcanth, skit by Spike Milligan for Q7 1978
Boris Johnson joins a motorcycle gang
Boris Johnson selling nutritional supplements on cable television
Boris Johnson refusing questions from reporters outside the old Bailey
Boris Johnson appearing on strictly come dancing after leaving politics in disgrace
Boris Johnson performing the mad scene from Lucia di lammermoor
Boris Johnson in his dressing gown standing outside Tesco with a bottle of gin in one hand

(That’s enough Boris — Ed.)

Diastrophist

Yes, it’s another trivial P5 doodle, mainly because I couldn’t face doing another trivial MidJourney post. At some point soon I might actually blog something worth reading, though don’t count on it. In the meantime I’ve almost finished the grinding tedium of exam marking (just some cohort feedback to write), I’ve got goldfinch chicks on the balcony and of course there’s Tears of the Kingdom to play. Also, as of last week, I’m fifty-fucking-six years old, which is a lot.

Gruffalo Stance

As mentioned in the previous post, MidJourney’s imposture of genre and style is pretty hit and miss, but sometimes it absolutely nails it.

The Gruffalo illustrated by Ralph Steadman
The Gruffalo illustrated by Edward Hopper
The Gruffalo illustrated by Tamara de Lempicka
The Gruffalo illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz
The Gruffalo illustrated by Edward Gorey

But in terms of sheer hilarity, I think this one is really la crème de la résistance:

The Gruffalo illustrated by Tom of Finland

There are a bunch more of these, mostly a bit less successful, at my MJ page, along with assorted fodder for future posts.

Obviously, as a man of a certain age and background, I also had no choice but to try this:

The Gruffalo black and white fashion photography styled by Ray Petri for The Face magazine 1983