If you’ve read Calley’s Chrysalis, in full or in part, you might have noticed that every now and again, some of the images are provided by AI art generators. I tried not to use them too much, especially for anything that involves people, partially because I prefer to use real artists, and partially because, from one image to another, they’re going to change how the figures look. I didn’t want the characters’ appearance to vary wildly from one image to the next. However, I did use AI art when I needed to generate a picture of an interior space or the exterior of a spaceship, for example.

That being said, I did actually ask the Perchance AI art generator to come up with images of the various characters in the book. Sometimes I would use these to guide the artist I hired so that they had an idea of what I wanted the characters to look like. And sometimes I just did it for fun. Here are some of the results.

First of all, Calley herself. It’s not a bad picture, but I do think she looks a little too nymph-like. Also, she’s showing a little too much of her chest in this picture. The Calley of the earlier chapters wouldn’t be so daring and the Calley of the later chapters probably wouldn’t be wearing that jumpsuit anymore, as she would favor blouses and pants.

Next up is Alezanna. The look and the body are OK, but that dress, while attractive, is nothing she would ever wear. Alezanna, throughout the story, makes it clear that fashions that you can trip over will get a Bellixan killed.

Then we have Sal. I would have preferred his shirt to be of a darker hue, but otherwise, that’s pretty much Sal, as I pictured him in my mind when I wrote the book.

Moving on, we come to Daznee. Not sure why she has pointed ears, but the AI decided to give her pointed ears. Also, it didn’t get the shade of her skin quite right. Probably the picture I’m least happy with. Oh well, this is just an exercise.

Yutag is another character the AI didn’t get quite right. Now, I pretty much expected it not to get the hair, because that’s a really weird hairstyle that I came up with. But I kind of wish that Yutag’s body here was a little more… different is all I can say.

Mix’s facial art is wrong. The rest of her is pretty much OK, but I really wish the AI had gotten the facial art correct.

Governor Madsen was kind of a weird one. The first batch of images the AI gave me we’re all wrong, as she was way too slight and feminine. When I initially imagined the character, I thought of pro-wrestler Kia Stevens. Of course, the AI didn’t know who that was. But then I took another pass at it, changing the wording of my request, and this came out. And I gotta admit, it’s not what I had my artist draw, but if I’d come up with it a little earlier, this might have been a good look for the character.

And finally Coslove. Not a bad look for the guy, though I do wish he didn’t look quite so tall. In my story, he’s about Calley’s height, and Calley’s a little on the short side. But aside from that, he doesn’t look too bad.