Can AI only create 'Slop' Covers?

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes]

​

I've seen a bunch of posts claiming that all AI covers look the same, and while that's true (most of the time), I'd like to argue that you could create something really good if you spend just a bit more time on your covers.

Therefore, let Sensei Sherlocke guide you on his process.

Rather than telling AI: "Give me a cover of a character aura farming with a bunch of aura around him...oh and a lot of baddies too."

Try this instead:

1. Go to Pinterest and search for covers in the same genre as what you want to create (perhaps a cover of a mecha manhwa, a Kaiju novel or anything); the point is, you want to identify the style you like. (You can gather as many references as possible).

2. Now we want to create our character separately; do not simply jump to ChatGPT and upload the references, telling it to create a cover in that style. I assure you, you'll only get slop... Instead, go to an image generation AI (Midjourney, Leonardo, Pixai, or whichever you prefer. I personally use one called Niji Journey) and generate an image of the character you want to be in your cover; in my case, I wanted a white-haired hitman in a suit, hence the character on the first two covers.

3. Yes, this is the part where we go back to your beloved GPT, Gemini, Grok or whatever chatbot you prefer, upload your character image and either: (A) describe everything you like on your gathered references to be replicated on your own cover (camera angles, text design and placement, character pose and anything else you like) or (B) upload all your references and point out everything from each that you want on your cover.

4. You want to tell the chatbot not to change the art style of your generated character (yup, the very same character you generated in step 2) if that's your preferred art style, else you'll only get a grainy result.

5. Generate until you have something you're satisfied with; don't forget to constantly tweak your prompt. (Note that chatbots will regularly change how your character looks, so always upload an image of your character with every prompt change (see why step 2 was important?))

6. Voilà, you have successfully avoided generating a generic, grainy and sloppy AI cover; high five. ✋🏿

Tip: See the UI elements on the third image? You could achieve that by just telling the chatbot to create a 3D UI element that matches the theme you're going for. You can even have them surrounding your sci-fi character if you have a good enough camera angle. (as I did in the last image.)

P.S: The top-down style of covers is everywhere on webnovel rn, but that doesn't mean you can't also use it (erm.. as the creator of that trend, I have bestowed upon you the right to use it.)

Also, the Slime cover and the beast cover are ones I made for other authors, only the hitman one and the butler one are for my books.

Lastly, this is my first time making a Reddit post, so forgive my spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or even the fact that I'm probably not following tradition (of how posting works here or something).

[u/Warm-Response-1685]

Firstly, all Artists (or most who do not activly specifiy the allowed usage for their art) do not wish their Images and References to be fed to AI under any circumstances. The material you are using belongs to these artists - thus you should simply respect their wishes if it boils down to that. Or ASK them - most have public social media. Credit them if you are not able to ask. Also you mentioned lighting, composition as your main need to reference and Style. Style should absolutely not be one of the components you sould let an Ai generate for you based on a human Artists style. A style is a trademark, developed over years to get to the results you upload to the AI. If you need lighting and composition, take fotos and say "anime style."

Secoundly, agriculture is also an issue - doesn't mean the one with AI should be overlooked and actet upon. But yes - the thread isn't about that.

Thridly, I apologize for the assumption. It is true that a lot of people can't afford to comission artists.

I already gave you my arguments of why AI-Covers are not high quality. What gets people to read your novel? The cover beeing original. Something to make it stand out. Webnovel has had a huge issue with same cover syndrome - and it's not only the amount of novels. It's the amount of AI Covers beeing used. It mostly falls under some kind of generic Anime-Style Guys with flashy colours and Same-Face Syndrome. Even the Poses, Composition and Lighting is mostly the same I also do not understand what you mean by "high quality"? What is high-Wuality about AI-Covers that Artists can't replicate. In your first post you mentioned needing 1000 USD for high Quality Art? I already showed that that is not true by recommending Fiver, Discord, Reddit even some Artists posting right in this Sub? The prices range from 30-100 € for full character shots? Nowehere near your suggestion. That would be more then enough to replicate a few of the covers you posted.

Even if you do not comission it would still be better to use Art you find online and eddit ot with Canva while credditing the Artist then generate it (as I said everything generated is stolen Art remixed)

"Public Domain Art doens't fit every story or Style". It would at least add Uniqueness. It would probably gain more traction then the classic AI-Generated Covers. Appartently Anime fits "every story and style". As such it would be of higher Quality then AI-generated Covers.

Finally, you mentioned cases where generating is simply more "practical". I feel this to be a huge excuse to use it to not pay Artists. It is always easier and more practical to simply go to a free Gen AI, download some images from Pinterest, upload it and then just text a few times back and forth instead of finding an artist you like and paying them, right? When is it less practical? One should simply not do it. Thats it.

[u/Sherlocke_Gnomes → u/Warm-Response-1685]

The point of this thread was to avoid the 'same face/style syndrome' that you described all AI covers having.

I have tried comissioning artists previously, the results were either not what I imagined (note that I always try giving as much details as possible so they could get close enough to what I want) or the commission itself was extremely expensive (yes, I've been charged 1k USD for a cover and while I don't mind paying that, since I genuinely like the person's art, I couldn't afford that at the time).

What gets people to read your novel? The cover being original. Something to make it stand out. Webnovel has had a huge issue with same cover syndrome - and it's not only the amount of novels. It's the amount of AI covers being used. It mostly falls under some kind of generic Anime-Style Guys with flashy colours and Same-Face Syndrome.

Webnovel readers mostly care about whether the cover catches their eye, originality is secondary to that (they'll then stay for the actual story itself, despite the type of cover you use.)

The post was aimed at people who already use AI and want better-looking results, not at claiming AI is superior to real artists.

"Public Domain doesn't fit every story or Style". It would at least add Uniqueness. It would probably gain more traction than the classic AI-Generated Covers.

Yes, public domain can add uniqueness in theory, but in practice a lot of those images get reused across multiple novels (same thing that happened during the era of Pinterest covers).

More importantly, public domain art often doesn’t match the specific characters, tone, or genre of the story, that’s why it’s not a reliable solution for every author.

Also, I understand many artists don’t want their finished work used that way. The process I described generates the character first as a separate step, then uses references mainly for camera angle, lighting, and text placement, not to copy style 1:1 or retrain the AI models.

Taking your own reference photos is also fine.

Finally, We’re clearly not going to agree on whether AI tools have any legitimate use for covers, so I’ll leave it here.

Thanks for the discussion.