River Rocks (using AI)

This series of river rocks was illustrated with Procreate using AI generated reference material. The rocks were commissioned by a client in the sporting goods industry and will be incorporated into apparel graphics.

I wanted to limit the artwork to one color, and as a result relied heavily on stippling to create both textures and shading. The brushes used for this project are from the Rusty Nib collection from True Grit Texture Supply.

Midjourney is actually surprisingly good at generating natural elements. In this case, I was effectively asking for "photorealistic river rocks with interesting textures over a white background." Out of every 10-15 rocks it generated, I was able to use 1 or 2 results. Considering how fast AI is, this process for me is 100% more time efficient (and fun) than scouring Google images or stock photography.

In these comparisons between AI and illustration, you can see how I'm still making decisions about how much detail to incorporate, and how closely I want to replicate the reference image.

I think this is a really good example of how AI can enhance your workflow while simultaneously guaranteeing that your artwork doesn't infringe on any copyright materials.