A review of 4 different AI Art and Creator Apps

I've tried quite a few AI Art apps. There is no doubt that the invention of AI x Creation Software is cause for panic within the Creative community - our lively hood depends on our skills and abilities to be able to create for others. If we through AI into the mix, we are introducing an unlevel playing field for supporting existing artists, and that money now goes instead to software engineers. (Which is not a bad thing either, but there should still be a strong pathway for existing artists to get commissions. ) If we don't create one, we risk AI becoming a monopoly on the art world. So listen up all my art philanthropists we've got a responsibility here. 


All that being said, I tried my hand at a few of these apps that came out, and while some are incredible and worth the money, others are perhaps not worth the weekly subscribtion fee they tack on. And I hope that this review helps you decide whether or not you'd like to treck down this path in your pursuit of art, or continue supporting artists directly in their field.  In addition, you will see some really wierd generations by AI that might read hands wierd, body or clothing postures and more. I have specifically chosen to include these wierd generations in hopes that it will shed some light on the faults of this technology still. 

1. Inspire - AI Art Generator  ☆ 4 / 5

Download on Apple,  Download on Google


Okay, I loved this app for one feature. - the comic book creation. You'll notice quite a bit of art on my site with this styling, and thats because it takes personal avatars to a whole new level. That imaginary SIMS world you wanted to be in is almost now a reality with being able to blue print your own physical features! In addition this app has a lot of other cool hyper-photo generation elements that are more realistic or NPC style. 

But I found that the AI had a hard time reading my hair color or eyes, and that some of my personal features were stamped and blended so much with the AI's blueprint, that I could not recognize myself.  Still cool! Just not quite to the elite hyper-realistic level you might imagine. Other times I found myself with 4 sets of legs, and a mis-read in the visual depth items that sort of auto-corrected into weird elements, like clothing, jewelry, or background space.   

Regardless, it felt like a page out of Hi-Fructose Magazine and did strike me as an intriguing to be turned into a GTA cover art character. Is it worth $24.month or $288 +tax a year to create endless AI content ? I suppose that depends who you are and your specific business needs. But if you're interested, they might still have a free trial which includes a good many features to check out. 

But this app hits the top of my list as one of the coolest I've seen so far.  And needless to say I have a lot more handle avatars now that I love, and honestly it helped inspire the color theme for this website.   😈

2. GIO: AI Headshot Art Generator  ☆ 3 / 5

Download on Apple, Download on Google

This was the second app I tried in my little experiment to understanding exactly what this AI threat looked like against the art community.  This particular App aims to create the perfect headshot using pre-prompted styles, very much like the previous app, however these are meant for resumes and linked in, and geared toward professionalism and high-end dress.

This app was also not perfect in that both my husband and I noticed that the app would frequently reshape skull faces, or elongate hands (I have some very creepy ape hands in some of the nicest generate images!) While I love a couple of the head shots, most of the time the dress wear in the app made me feel like I was a barcode employee, easy to be missed, and it didn't do much to highlight my personality with the backgrounds those pre-templated outfits came from. 

There are other themes outside of job headshots, such as "old-money" that threw me back into the 60s and 70s, looking like Kitty Foreman again with some wierd clothing applications (such as only a white collar on a clearly tan shirt, and white jacket. ) I did end up loving a few of these and did save them for some of my personal photos. Some of the formal wear dresses and clean line outfits lended themselves well to some of my application, but most of the time I just felt like my fact was cropped out of a photo, and slapped on another image - like making a magazine collage.  It was wierd seeing myself without tattoos again though! 


This app costs the same as the first app at $24/Month, or $28 +tax / year. Again check out a free trial! And with that being said, I think it's cool that you can see yourself in these settings - I feel like this type of App could help generate outfit ideas and see this becoming a regular part of how retail does business online. Infact, there are a number of retailers who today use body scanning tech to upload their information, and generate AI try on hauls without having to dress and un-dress through outfits. 

3. AI Art Generator: Photo, Draw  ☆ 2 / 5

Download on Apple,  Download on Google

While this app might appear or be advertised as free, don't believe it! It is free to download, but in order to generate content, you must sign up on the $5.99 weekly subscription. Given the buzz around AI I felt that this was particularly predatory. But you do get 60 avatars off of one photo, which takes approximately 10 minutes and is much more different than individually exploring singular photos like the first AI App.

So for this I used the same photo in the second app and let the Generater go while I typed out this article.  While the app counted down, and got to 0 minutes, and continued to load, I waited. And then the ticker climed back to to 5 minutes.. and then then finally I was able to see the reveal.

One thing to note - I wore glasses in my photo. I wear glasses regularly, my glasses are clear frames,  and I don't believe this AI did a good job at recognizing what glasses are and how they arre applied on the face. Instead the app gave me bags under my eyes, or smodged what would be interpreted as eye liner in the corner of my eyes. I also made the mistake of chosing one style for this experiment, instead of a variety of different styles  which resulted in what felt like duplicate generations by this app of head shot. 

When I tried to go back through the app I felt again that i had to jump through hoops to not pay. I was brought back to the home screen asking to subscribe to $4.99/week or $30/year. Even after I just paid $6 for 60 headshots that looks very similar.  Finally I was able to get around the pay wall and abl to acess the features within the app, and it was very similar to the first. Except for this one in order to generate individual content, I needed to watch an ad. Anyone knows that watching ads while trying to work with an app can be really off putting.  Overall I of course caved in because otherwise I would have no content for this article, but had to wat 30 seconds.  Sadly the app failed and spat out no artwork to share and instead asked me to watch another 30 second app.

The experience in this app was so frustrating that I ended up scrapping the pursuit and moving on to the next app (which ironically was advertized in this one), and that looked very similarly to the first - making me wonder if there are multiple iterations of the same thing on the platform. 

4. AI Mirror  ☆ 5 / 5

Download on Apple,   Download on Google 

The app I was introduced to next seemed to have no paywall at the begining until I got to revealing my art. Another free trial for this one which was nice, as I can cancel any time. However in order to get the free trial, I was roped into having to sign for the yearly price of $30. Again the splash page for this app felt exactly the same as the one before. The trial for this app was shorter too, only 3 days. Just really predatory feeling.

However,  getting past all that gate keeping, I found that my first draw actually provides 4 different itterations of the style, which was nice to have some variety to chose from. This app also was time heavy, but also drew some really cool, specific themed images which I will probably ue for some of my gaming avatars.

So I chose a few different themes to explore: Anime,  Barbie Doll, and Cartoon Gangster (of course I would.)  And these were the the outcomes! Overall I really liked the alternative options on this app as well. The fact that you get multiple itterations of the same photo in the same style screams more value to me than many of the other apps used.  I did notice that with some of the other apps, the AI assigned my eye color as blue instead of brown, which feels a little cold and less customized. Of course, I can just fix this in photoshop but it was still a little bit annoying.

With the variety in this app I ended up getting a lot of cool shots and I was super happy to explore all the different styles they had. I feel like it did a great job with most of the cartoon styles, although if I could actually get my lips to be that plump, I might not be typing this right now!


Ironically the photo I uploaded in this app was already AI generated, so it was interested how AI interpreted AI in this photo. 

Some of the coolest filters I found in the app were the Barbie doll, Lego, and litterally, the movie Avatar. Out of all the apps I found - i really can't say enough about the bang for your buck that you get in this one and I did not find an end to the number of filters available. 


Conclusion

What ever your thoughts on AI, it's important to remember that it will never replace real life.  As we fall deeper into the rabbit hole of how AI affect the perception of reality, and the ability to decipher reality vs  deep fake,  take it as a warning. The Movie Polar Express, 2004 ,tried to re-create Tom Hanks and scared children with the animation, who is in his own right trying is to fight a fake ad that was created on the internet to sell Dental Insurance.  We aren't ready to understand the consiquences that this mght have, and we might end up in a sitiation where even our own leadership and governments can't tell the difference in what they are governing.

AI Art is great, but it shouldn't replace real humans. There is still a lot of ideaology that can come from the human mind about what life is about and how it's dimentions are to be experienced. While it's easy to fall into this singular narrative, exercising this openness can help keep us on the innovative treck such as discovering gravity. (looking at you Newton. )

We've had the internet for a good while now, and one might say it is our modern day rennaisance. We are diving into an unknown territory and that means potentially facing some challenging situations in judging whether the direction is positive for the fate of humanity. What ever your opinion is on AI, definitely go and visit a real art gallery. Support a local artist by buying a small piece of their art. Recognize that there are many creative minds that are probably your neighbor who exercise this skill every day in hopes that it might appeal to your taste or style.  You can find these artists in the farmers market, on etsy, through instagram, and in art shows.  (And some artshows offer free booze and food!)  Support local art despite where AI takes us, and make a connection with your creative community.