GymDreams
- United States
- Deviant for 12 years
- gymdreams8.com
- He / Him
Gay artist dreaming with AI — with Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Photoshop AI. Yale educated. Bauhaus philosophy. Works in design.
Works
Many of the works you’ll find on my feed delve into my personal experiences as a gay man. They weave together elements of autobiography, metaphor, and fiction.
Expressing the true essence of these works, or why I create them, is a challenge due to the intangible nature of the emotions they encompass. These feelings defy simple verbalization.
Greek mythology has held a profound influence on me since childhood, both as stories and as artworks. Even as a young child, I struggled to articulate precisely why I was drawn to them and why they continue to inspire the works I create.
However, what I can say is that by sharing and examining these pieces, I have gradually come closer to understanding myself. They serve as a form of reconciliation, bridging the gap between the intricate emotions I experience and my inability to fully elucidate them through logical reasoning.
Workflow
In my professional design work, I utilize AI tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to enhance my creative process. However, I have discovered that these tools have significantly improved my skills when I utilize them for personal projects, which I share under the name GymDreams8.
Typically, I begin with a concept or theme, forming a visual representation in my mind. However, during the initial exploration stage, I strive not to restrict myself too much, as the AI engines often surprise me with ideas that I hadn’t considered. I view these machines as partners, not only in generating images but also in brainstorming ideas. They excel in this area.
The next step involves multiple iterations of prompt manipulation to achieve the desired composition and styles. Sometimes, I incorporate additional images as input, as text descriptions can be limiting. The entire process involves a significant amount of art direction, along with post-processing using Lightroom and Photoshop to add the final touches.
Many of my works revolve around gay themes, encompassing concepts and ideas that have lingered in my mind for a lifetime, waiting to be unleashed. I sincerely hope that you will enjoy them.
Contact
You can find me on my social media:
Reddit @GymDreams - SFW
Reddit @GymDreams8 - NSFW
Discord username: gymdreams
I have created two separate Reddit accounts out of necessity. While I primarily post works that are safe for work (SFW), I have encountered an issue where Reddit flags an entire account as not safe for work (NSFW) based on a simple comment made in a subreddit that is marked as NSFW. To avoid this, I decided to create two distinct accounts to ensure SFW content remains separate and unaffected by such restrictions.
Feel free to reach out to me through direct messages on social media or by sending an email to hello@gymdreams8.com
About my logo / identity design
Regional Prompter with Stable Diffusion
About GymDreams
Gay artist dreaming with AI — exploring male forms and representations, with Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Photoshop AI. Yale educated. Bauhaus philosophy. Works in design.
Works
Many of the works you’ll find on my feed delve into my personal experiences as a gay man. They weave together elements of autobiography, metaphor, and fiction.
Expressing the true essence of these works, or why I create them, is a challenge due to the intangible nature of the emotions they encompass. These feelings defy simple verbalization.
Greek mythology has held a profound influence on me since childhood, both as stories and as artworks. Even as a young child, I struggled to articulate precisely why I was drawn to them and why they continue to inspire the works I create.
However, what I can say is that by sharing and examining these pieces, I have gradually come closer to understanding myself. They serve as a form of reconciliation, bridging the gap between the intricate emotions I experience and my inability to fully elucidate them through logical reasoning.
Commisions
I am available for commissions. Please see Commission for more information.
Workflow
In my professional design work, I utilize AI tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to enhance my creative process. However, I have discovered that these tools have significantly improved my skills when I utilize them for personal projects, which I share under the name GymDreams8.
Typically, I begin with a concept or theme, forming a visual representation in my mind. However, during the initial exploration stage, I strive not to restrict myself too much, as the AI engines often surprise me with ideas that I hadn’t considered. I view these machines as partners, not only in generating images but also in brainstorming ideas. They excel in this area.
The next step involves multiple iterations of prompt manipulation to achieve the desired composition and styles. Sometimes, I incorporate additional images as input, as text descriptions can be limiting. The entire process involves a significant amount of art direction, along with post-processing using Lightroom and Photoshop to add the final touches.
Many of my works revolve around gay themes, encompassing concepts and ideas that have lingered in my mind for a lifetime, waiting to be unleashed. I sincerely hope that you will enjoy them.
Tools
Midjourney
Beginner-friendly AI generation tool.
Runs as a Discord bot.
Private source.
Midjourney.com
Stable Diffusion
Gold-standard AI generation tool.
Very powerful.
Very steep learning curve.
Open source.
Stable Diffusion UIs
Stable Diffusion is an open source technology. You can run it programmatically, but is is usually run with a GUI (graphical user interface). Here are some of the most popular UI implementations:
Automatic1111 SD WebUI
One of the most popular UIs out there.
Lots of plugins to extend features.
SDXL-capable.
SD.Next
Originally a fork of Automatic1111.
Now has a lot of unique features.
SDXL-capable.
ComfyUI
Node-based UI.
Powerful, but has some learning curve.
Relatively hard to pick up if you’re a beginner.
SDXL-capable.
One of the best UIs available if you want to use SDXL, the next-gen SD model.
Stable Diffusion as a Service
If you don’t have a power GPU (graphic card), you can use one of these cloud providers:
Mage.Space
One of the best cloud based SD providers. Highly recommended.
Beginner friendly
SDXL-capable
Stable Diffusion on M1/M2
Setting up Stable Diffusion on Apple Silicon (M1/M2) is not hard, but some technical knowledge is required. I wrote a guide on how to do it on my Docs site using Automatic1111.
Stable Diffusion in the Cloud
If you don’t own a powerful machine, you can rent GPUs in the cloud, then run Automatic1111 SD WebUI on them, with a docker image. This is what I use to run large jobs with Stable Diffusion.
I wrote a guide on how to do it with Vast.AI, a GPU rental provider, on my Docs site.
Photoshop AI
It is terrible at generating images, but it is very good at fixing them.
It is highly sophisticated for matching style, lighting, and even reflections.
Technology
Although I identify as a designer, technology has been an integral part of my creative process for many years. I began programming at a young age, and my professional design work often lies at the intersection of art and technology. Creating AI art feels like a natural fit for me, as it allows me to leverage both my design and technical skills.
Regarding the construction of this website, I frequently use personal projects as an opportunity to explore new technical frameworks that pique my interest. This site was built from scratch using Nuxt 3, a web framework based on Vue 3. The content management system driving the site is Nuxt Content, an official module developed by the Nuxt team. This module enables me to write content in Markdown and publish it quickly.
For the CSS framework, I rely on Tailwind CSS. Tailwind is a utility-first CSS framework that empowers me to efficiently design new features and functionalities directly within the code. The site’s icons are provided by Font Awesome Pro, an excellent icon library offering a wide range of up-to-date icons. Additionally, Font Awesome's SVG icon feature allows for efficient bundling to reduce file sizes.
The images are hosted on Amazon S3 and optimized to various sizes using Cloudflare Image Optimization. Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN) caches the images, ensuring fast loading times for visitors. By utilizing direct repository integration with Github, the site is automatically built and deployed on Cloudflare Pages whenever I push a new commit to the master branch. Leveraging Cloudflare, with its extensive global network of data centers, ensures rapid loading speeds for visitors worldwide, regardless of their proximity to an origin server.
Contact
You can find me on my social media:
Twitter @GymDreams8 - Main
Twitter @GayDefiance - Extended
Reddit @GymDreams - Main
Reddit @GymDreams8 - Alt
Discord username: gymdreams
Feel free to reach out to me through direct messages on social media or by sending an email to hello+deviantart@gymdreams8.com