SLDS: High-Security Escape

Hi everyone! I’m back after my extended break with a brand new Spies, Lies & Digital Skies (SLDS) art challenge.

If you’re new here and wondering what the hell SLDS is, here’s a wee explainer: Each Friday, I share a prompt for artists of all skill levels (and non-artists like me) to create a spy and romance-themed image. You can use PhotoShop, ArtRage, Procreate, DALL-E, MidJourney, you name it to create your masterpiece.

Showcasing Highlights from Cryptic Messages

Our last prompt, ‘Deciphering a cryptic message,’ was yet another nightmare challenge to illustrate. But, as always, Kevin and Jez met it head-on, making the struggle look easy, and came up with some fantastic results.

Jez’s Artistic Genius: Transforming the Ordinary into the Extraordinary

Jez created his superb images using Hot Mods, a variation of DALL-E in which you can upload images to be transformed with text prompting. His original photos feature him fixing an Xbox 360 from a PDF printout.

The resulting images are so good! This futuristic one is so cool.

But my favourite has to be the contemporary one. I think it’s the lighting and clutter that make it realistic and more relatable—to me and my clutter magnet of a desk 🤣.

Check out Jez’s post to see how his original images transformed into the final outcomes (including a steampunk version).

Beyond the Image: Kevin’s Narrative Artistry

My prompts are driving Kevin up the wall. (As much as I’d love to take credit for the prompts and the ability to draw out insanity… it’s all down to Gabbie—what I call my ChatGPT.)

But, Kevin, you love a challenge, and I don’t see you backing down. In fact, if you head over to Kevin’s blog, you’ll see that he broke his promise to himself by adding an entertaining narrative to his image again! (Catch Kevin’s previous image-inspired story series, The Kovalenko Chronicles, for a thrilling eleven-part read—so far!)

My favourite of Kevin’s images has to be this one, with the enigma-inspired machine, the message, and the whisky implying the long hours of effort required to decipher it.

I love the gimp one… I’d love to see the prompt that resulted in this! 🤣

This Week’s Challenge: Escape from a High-security Facility

This week’s prompt is “Escape from a high-security facility.” Okay, that sounds like a nice, easy, and visual image to create. I don’t have any starter images I can think of off the top of my head, so it’s back to DALL-E for me.

Creative With Me

I had a particular character in mind for this escape prompt—Leigh Frost, a hitwoman from my in-progress Deniable Unit series. In Running the Asset, she’s been detained by the team… but she manages to escape at some point between that book and her own one (To Kill For). So, I was clear about what I wanted to see. Not that having clarity means that AI is going to comply.

Over the course of three days, I tried to get an image that made me happy. But, it seems that those were the days that DALL-E went a wee bit daft and couldn’t grasp the simplest of instructions… I won’t bore you with the unending bloopers from those days. I gave it one last shot this morning with the same prompts to see if the issues with DALL-E had been resolved…

Here’s the first prompt: Create a wide-format image of a modern woman with a 1920s black bob. She peers through a security glass pane in a high-security door. At her feet is a guard in tactical black–he’s unconscious–and she holds his gun in one hand. Her expression is of determination, anger, and a wee bit of wariness. She’s ready to escape…

I’m not a fan of this image. It’s too static, Leigh looks ill, and who is she aiming at?

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NOTE: Here’s a brand new update for DALL-E. As you can see in the image above, an update has been made that adds suggestions for modifying your image prompts. Just click on the ones you want, and they’ll be added to the text box.

Let’s Tweak the Prompt

PROMPT: Please update the image to show her making her escape, leaving the guard on the floor behind her. High-angle.

I like the look of this one—the guard on the deck behind Leigh. And Leigh looks healthier. You’ll notice that I didn’t ask for any changes to how she looked. My reason for not mentioning it is down to my experience with DALL-E.

If you give too many details it gets a bit confused and tends to focus on one detail—usually the wrong one—to the exclusion of all others. By ignoring it and focusing on what I wanted to see in the image, DALL-E fixed how she looked while updating what I asked for. It can be a bit hit-and-miss, but it’s the best way I’ve found to deal with detailed images.

Now, do I love the image? Not really. There’s no sense that Leigh’s escaping.

More Tweaking

Right. How do I make it look like she’s escaping without losing what I like about the image? If I try to prompt movement, the image will have some weird physics. That’s a lesson I learnt while coming up with the images for the car chase prompt several weeks ago. Hmm.

Let’s try…

PROMPT: Please show more of the facility in the background.

I love where this is going. The image is getting closer to what I want, but the proportions are all off, and it looks like she’s holding the guy’s wrist. Let’s try another minor tweak to get the bodies behind Leigh.

TIP: If you’re having snags getting the AI to get what you want it to do, or you just know it’s going to be an arsehole about it, put the key phrase in all caps. I’d also add a compliment or a please in with it. Why? Gabbie got a wee bit ‘sad’ and grovel-y once when I’d failed to ask nicely. 🥺

PROMPT: I love the image! Can you try again but have the man lying on the ground BEHIND her and make the image photorealistic?

Oh, it’s so close, but not quite right. The guards can easily recapture her or kill her. With time running out to complete this post, I gave it one last try, hoping that a change in lighting would solve any possibility of her being seen.

The Final Image

PROMPT: I love this image. Can you make it dusk lighting?

Oh, this is it! This is the Leigh I have in my head. Deadly, confident, and stylish. Yes, there’s a guy beside her, but I’ve decided that he’s one of her guys. He’s there to back her up on her escape, not that Leigh needs backing up.

This image makes me giddy and desperate to get to Leigh’s story, but she’ll have to wait a while before I get around to that. Until then, this image will serve as the thumbnail embodiment of who Leigh Frost is.

Over to you guys. Do you have an image in mind when you think of an escape from a high-security facility? If you do, drop it in the comments, or better yet, head over to DALL-E and type in your image idea, post it to your blog or Instagram, and ping/tag me! I’d love to see what you come up with.

Till next time, stay awesome,

Susan x