RAIG: Rubber AI Girls and the hard work needed to create them

RAIG: RUBBER AI GIRLS AND THE HARD WORK NEEDED TO CREATE THEM

RAIG — an acronym for Rubber AI Girls — is the ‘pen name’ adopted by an AI artist who has gone to great lengths to keep his or her identity masked online (although we think it’s fairly safe to assume it’s a him!).

For example, on Facebook, where the work is most readily accessible, if you want to start a conversation with the artist, the only way to do it is to post in the comments next to one of their images. If you post that you’d like to promote some of their work in a blog, they may well reply — in the same comments — something like “sounds good”, without providing any means to continue the conversation in a more private space (such as Messenger for example).

When you’re trying to showcase someone’s work because you think it’s fab and well worth recommending to readers — who might well decide to buy some full sets (of typically 20–30 images) for the ridiculously affordable price per set of between $1 and $3 — it’s a little frustrating not to be able to fully connect with the talented creator in question.

Top image: EXPERICHAMBER BLACK (detail): A new RAIG set of 30 shiny black-clad women in well-equipped ‘laboratory’. Entire set for $3, downloadable as a single zip file from payhip.com/b/xGNwr

ORANGE RUBBER AT FOUNDRY MUD PIT (detail above): Brand new RAIG set featuring wet and muddy orange rubber women in rubber boots and gas masks mucking through the mud at the old foundry. Entire set for $3, downloadable as a single 47mB zip file from payhip.com/b/k7eVs

But anyone who has dealt with artists professionally to any extent will be aware that some very talented people literally invest all their energy into creating the most perfect art they can conceive, and that this may well be, for them, their most effective way of communicating with the world around them, rather than by putting words down on a page.

It would be easy to assume this with the secretive artist formally known as RAIG (geddit?), and that’s just what we thought was probably the case until we discovered their post entitled AI image generation is so easy! Accompanied by a number of marked-up images (one of which is included at the bottom of this article), this text admittedly reveals no more about the identity of RAIG than that they are a professional photographer and artist of 25 years-plus experience.

But it is a fascinating insight into the process of creating AI imagery — with the emphasis on what can go wrong along the way, and what the diligent AI creator may therefore have to fix ‘manually’ in Photoshop if they don’t want to be laughed off the internet.

1950s POOLSIDE NYLONS AND LINGERIE (detail above left): New content added to this RAIG album of 21 images, eight of which were previously unpublished. Entire set at new lower price of $2 from payhip.com/b/AaGpt
ER NURSES IN LIGHT BLUE (detail above right): 26 images, many featuring gas masks, rubber boots and/or rubber gloves. Entire set downloadable as 39mB zip file for $1 from payhip.com/b/UjbCf

So, in this article, along with a selection of RAIG fetish work that really should encourage you to investigate further, we’re also going to reproduce, below, the artist’s revelations about what can go wrong with AI. It certainly seems to suggest that the best AI images generated using programs like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion may require as much traditional human artistic input (beyond the initial text prompts) as imagery involving no AI at all!

So now, over to RAIG for the inside track on the sorts of things that have to be fixed on images like the example at the bottom. On RAIG’s Facebook page here, you can find three further examples complete with error mark-ups, along with a lot of lovely other stuff that has been fully tweaked and is cheap as chips to buy, given the work that’s gone into it!

‘AI image generation is so easy’ – RAIG

“AI image generation is so easy, right? All you do is push a button and you get perfect images. It's not art. Anyone can do it. Wrong. Digital artists/creators spend hours upon hours working at, and honing their craft.

1940s TANK FACTORY GIRLS IN LIGHT BLUE RUBBER (above): New addition to RAIG’s earlier Tank Factory Girls set, consisting of 37 images downloadable as a 60mB zip file for $3 from payhip.com/b/YSe5f

“[On Facebook] are just a few examples of what happens when using any number of AI user interfaces to create images. By the way, these types of images are very common: perhaps half or 75 percent of the output is unusable for publication. Of the four pics presented [in this Facebook selection], the girl in the green rubber mask is perhaps the only saveable pic in my opinion. Fingers and eyes can usually be fixed without too much trouble. The other images aren't worth the effort. They will never see the light of day.

“Almost every pic you see on my Facebook page has been imported into a Photoshop-type program to be fixed, and every pic has been worked on for watermark and metadata. There are so many other things that require the artist's attention too: things like straight edges that don't line up when they pass behind an object in the foreground, anomalous artefacts, changing colours, changing textures, asymmetry, too many arms, too many legs, unnatural posing et al. The list of mistakes is nearly endless.

“Just finding the proper prompt wording when beginning a new idea, to generate images even close to what you want, takes hours, and much practice. Then the pics have to be sorted into various categories like: usable, fixable, and throw away.

STEAMPUNK AIRSHIP CAPTAIN IN RUBBER AND NYLONS (above): Not yet available as a full RAIG set, these are examples of different results produced by variations on a single basic idea. View more on Facebook here

There may easily be 400 pics to get 30 good ones that will eventually be published. Each pic may require as much as 15 minutes or more in Photoshop. On top of fixing mistakes, adding watermarks, metadata, and batch renaming all takes time as well.

“So anyone who thinks this isn't art because the pic wasn't taken with a camera... you couldn't be more wrong. As a professional photographer (and artist) for the last 25+ years, I can tell you this is far more work than a traditional photoshoot.

“Why am I telling you all this? It's not me whining, it's me justifying charging a ridiculously small amount of money for hundreds of hours of work at the computer to bring you high quality images that you cannot find anywhere else.

“Be a good human... if you regularly find pleasure in viewing a digital creator's work, open your wallet and let them know you appreciate all of their effort and time. Subscriptions to AI that allow adult content are not free.” – RAIG

AI IS SO EASY: one of four examples marked-up by RAIG to illustrate the kind of AI-generated errors that either have to be manually fixed in Photoshop or dumped as unusable. View more on Facebook here