If there’s one kind of Generative AI that appeals to me even more than those that create images from text prompts, it’s the ones that transform a sketch into defined, colored artwork.
Personally, I wouldn’t use them to finalize one of my own pieces, but I’ve found these AIs incredibly useful for defining color composition in an illustration—and even for deciding which style might produce the best result.
Recently, I started two personal projects that will require this kind of visual experimentation, and since I don’t have much time to devote to the art of illustrating, Generative AIs have become essential to move the work forward.
Well… I’m not here to advertise any AI, so for now I’ll refrain from revealing which specific site or software I tested.
The fact is, I began the tests using one of my existing sketches:
My drawing doesn’t specify any colors and isn’t paired with a prompt explaining what each element in the illustration represents.
All the recognition of lines and elements was done by the AI itself, and the whole process took around five minutes—from uploading the file, choosing a style, generating four versions, and selecting the best two.
Of course, I used a high-resolution sketch with clean, well-defined lines—no smudges or erasures—since I already assumed the pencil strokes barely visible in the original image would be ignored by the software.
The best results generated by the AI were as follows:
Anyone familiar with the legend of Matinta Perê knows that she should have slightly darker, reddish skin to resemble a Brazilian Indigenous woman, not a European-styled wandering old lady.
Her face also changed a bit from the original sketch, and the AI seems to have completely ignored the moon in the sky—clearly indicating nighttime, not daylight. And that’s exactly why Generative AIs shouldn’t be used to finalize your art—at least not yet…
On the other hand, it’s easy to see how useful they can be when it comes to coloring and defining how the piece will be finished.
In my case, I’ll work with the two generated images as references for what turned out well. Personally, I loved the glowing dust inside the cloak and the cloud idea in the second image, just as much as the clothing colors in the first one.
Now it’s up to me, as the illustrator, to return to my drawing table and work on the final version of my Matinta Perê with these ideas in mind—already knowing better which materials I’ll use for coloring.
