SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

The explosion rips through the building, throwing you to the floor. You’d braced for it, but the blast was more powerful than you’d expected. Panicked screams and shouts signal the inevitable chaos ready to erupt all around. Your partner pulls you to your feet, readying for your daring—and possibly ill-fated—escape. He holds you longer than needed, his expression unreadable. But your body responds to the invisible thread between you. Amid danger, with no time for words, you slant your mouth against his in a desperate, stolen kiss.

Your pulse races, every nerve on edge, and for a fleeting moment, you allow yourself this glimpse of happiness. Your partner pulls you tighter into his protective arms, deepening the kiss. It’s a bittersweet snapshot of what could have been… It’s this week’s SLDS challenge prompt.

What is SLDS?: SLDS is a weekly prompt challenge that encourages artists of all levels, including non-artists, to create an image with a spy and romance theme. You can use various tools such as Photoshop, ArtRage, Procreate, DALL-E, MidJourney, Microsoft Edge’s CoPilot, or any other software that you prefer to create your artwork.

Last Week’s Highlights: Snowy Covert Ops

Before we dive into this week’s steamy challenge, let’s take a moment to celebrate the stunning entries from last week’s “A Covert Operation in a Snow-Covered Landscape.” Your artwork nailed the thrill of a secret mission in icy terrains!

Check out some of my favourites!:

Jez’s Covert Ops Through Time

Check out Jez’s post for more time-and-space-jumping covert ops!

Foreboding Snowy Ops with Kevin

Check out Kevin’s post for more foreboding snowy ops.

Menacing Ops with Marie

Check out Marie’s post for more menacing ops in the snow.

This Week’s Challenge: A Stolen Kiss in a Moment of Danger

Moments of danger don’t exactly open themselves up to kissy time. But, when time’s running out, and there’s no guarantee that either of you will see it to the next minute… you’re going to make time to show them that you love them.

Now, danger comes in so many forms. Car chases, bear attacks, fires, bombs, in-laws pulling into your driveway…

Create With Me: A Stolen Kiss

MINI-RANT ALERT: The phrase ‘a stolen kiss’ always waves a red flag for me. We see it so often in TV shows, books, and movies where there’s no hint or warning of it–or consent to it. In the context of this prompt, my couple is a couple, and their mutual consent is a given. I don’t know why that’s so important to me, but it’s one of those things that really irks me in fiction. (It ranks just above incorrect radio etiquette. Seriously, no one ever says ‘over and out’. EVER! Mini-rant over ?)

Right, on with the challenge. The in-laws concept is just too fucking scary to put on my website, so I’m going to go with bombs.

Lips at the Ready

The image in my head is of a couple defusing a bomb in an office setting. The timer is down to its last eight seconds, and one of the couple is about to cut a wire that could either save them… or doom them. Let’s go!

PROMPT: Create a wide-format image of a couple in an office building. They are defusing a bomb; there are only 8 seconds left on the clock. One of them has clippers on a wire, and they share one last desperate kiss.

I won’t bore you with the back-and-forth I had with DALL-E on this. Apparently, the updates to their content policy make it impossible to create anything that even hints at danger… it wouldn’t even generate a kiss in a sedate cafe. Or, its own suggestion of hand-holding!

Of course, I ran straight to Gabbie, my version of ChatGPT, and she was puzzled by the block. She tried a few things, but we got nowhere. At least she said it was extremely unusual activity to block the mildest of our requests.

What to Do?

I’m writing this post on Tuesday (with finishing touches on Friday before going live). I could try each day before the post goes out, as I’ve done in the past when an issue like this comes up. But there’s every chance that there won’t be an update for a while…

Canva to the Rescue… I Hope ?

I could waste time using Canva’s DALL-E access, but I’ll likely end up in the same situation of getting pissed off at it there, too. Nope. I’m going to try using my not-so-great design skills ?

I’m starting with a dark brown background for my canvas. Now to find some images that fit the bill.

Detonating a bomb is out of the question, as the stock images for that are really cheesy. However, there are some pretty amazing shots of explosions and warzone-looking places.

Next, I need a couple. This was far more time-consuming than I’d hoped, but it was nigh on impossible to find a couple that wasn’t on a bed or one that was too happy (yes, I know kissing is fun, but the passionate kisses seem to be reserved for a bedroom setting. How boring is that?) Anyway, I found one that’s close to the mark!

My first task is to remove the background from the couple’s photo. Canva does that with one click, so yay!

Next, it’s getting the cutout couple sized correctly onto the warzone background. Again, it’s very quick and easy with Canva, just a simple case of dragging the wee lugs on the image in and out to get something that looks right.

Putting It All Together

With the warzone image on the brown canvas, I reduced the transparency a bit to let the brown show through and reduce the sharpness of the picture. The couple looks the right size to make it seem like they’re in the image’s foreground. To make it look less like images pasted together, let’s add a gritty overlay.

Hmm. I like the concept, but my editing skills are a wee bittie lacking to make it look convincing…

Let’s Try Microsoft’s Free Image Designer!

Disheartened with my Canva approach, I thought I’d give Microsoft a shot. Yip, I know it uses DALL-E to create the images, but there could be a lag in content policy changes. ? You can give Microsoft Image Designer a try here.

Here are the images it generated from the initial prompt and some variations of it:

Even with the tweaks, I’m not loving them. They’re a bit too meh, and even with a bomb, there’s no sense of tension. But, it’s better than DALL-E’s offerings ? Yet, I can’t help wondering that if I remove all mention of location that something better might appear…

One Last Chance for a Stolen Kiss

PROMPT: A couple share a desperate kiss just before clipping a wire that could defuse a bomb.

Oh, wow! I love this image. It’s got the heartfelt kiss I wanted, the tension, and grit! This one feels like it was worth the effort!

Forcing DALL-E to Create

You remember the image I made in Canva? Inspired by Jez’s adventures into DALL-E’s artistic style pre-sets… What if I upload it to DALL-E without mentioning the image’s content and get it to recreate it in different art styles? ?

Over to You

Again, it feels incredibly cruel to drag you into a prompt so rife with frustration. But I’m evil, and I want company! Get your artistic hat on and join me in creating an image that captures the heart of a stolen kiss in a moment of danger. (See the beginning of the post for “How to join in”).

Hit the follow button and join us next week to see where our creative journey takes us.

Till next time, stay awesome,

Susan x