Kiss, like flower, like water. Orange lily, African men.
A kiss and a passionate embrace between two gay men started a chain reaction and a visual journey — mixed with flowers, water drops, and ethereal light. Abstract surreal photography realized through AI. Rendered with Stable Diffusion, Deforum, and Juggernaut Aftermath.
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Although I don’t always mention it, the men you see in my works are often based on actual people. While I don’t use their real faces, I do prompt according the feeling they project, their skin tones and body shapes. I find that this makes the work more personal and intimate.
The men you saw in the first video were based on a couple I know. I like the results of that first video very much, and so I decided to make a series based on that idea.
Unlike other series in my works, this piece is not autobiographical in nature, but rather an artistic expression about love, so that gives me far more flexibility to include a diversity of ethnicity and flowers.
For the first variation of the concept, I chose to feature African men. I find their skin tones to work especially well with orange and other bright colors like yellow. Lilies have a special meaning in my life, so you’ll often see them in my works.
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Text prompts in Stable Diffusion, Deforum, 1500 frames, edited to 1 min 29 sec.
Juggernaut AfterMath, DPM++ SDE Karras, 25 steps
512x910, upscaled to 1088x1920, cropped to 1080x1920
Deforum key prompts at frame 0, 300, 600, 900, 1200, 1500
Seed: iter, 3D animation, 1500 frame, Replicate border, 15fps
Soundtrack: Licensed music “Three Hands” by Aaron Paul Low. Remixed to animation length in Ableton Live Suite
Animation: Adobe After Effect
Video Upscale: Topaz VideoAI 212.39%, 30 fps, AI models: Apollo frame interpolation, Proteus Enhancement.
Stills: Topaz Gigapixel HQ 4x, 2048 x 3640