Dreamscapes and Doodles: Inside Anelyn’s AI Artistry

There are many styles of artwork generated and posted every day, but Anelyn’s stands out with its storybook-like quality. We talk to Anelyn about her whimsical and delightful work.

All images in this article were created by Anelyn.

Q: How did you first become interested in creating artwork with AI? What model do you primarily use?

A: I have been a traditional doodler all my life, but wasn't aware of AI art until beginning of 2023 when hype about MidJourney and Dall-E originally started spreading more widely. At first I didn't look into it much to even find out how to access any of this, until someone mentioned ScribbleDiffusion on X and since it was simple, free and browser based, I had to try it! My very first generation was on March 14th 2023 of a white fluffy bunny (more about him below). On ScribbleDiffusion you get to draw a basic sketch to go with your prompt and that appealed to the doodler in me big time. I spent maybe a month on ScribbleDiffusion drawing animals and testing what it can do before Bing gave me the easy access to Dall-E (2) I'd been hoping for. I miss Dall-E2, I wish Bing had kept both and added a button to switch between 2 and 3.

Q: What influences helped you develop your style?

A: I tend to like wholesome and naive art, like children's book illustrations. Cute animals are a theme I naturally rotate towards. I make pretty colorful art now with AI, back in my drawing days my art was always either line art or monocolor shaded.

Q: Could you describe your process of finding inspiration for your artwork? Do you come up with a concept first then create an image to match or do you start with an image and look for the story inside it?

A: I'm a lottery prompter most of the time, I think up really random stuff (words or word combos) to throw in and see what happens, something that forces the AI to make guesses. One picture or idea then leads to the next. I do view it a bit like a video game, it's a back and forth between me and the AI, both of us taking turns to go "well, how about this? or what if this?" For me the fun is in the surprises, if an image is visually interesting, I don't care if it's nothing like what I was originally trying to get.

Q: What have been the biggest challenges you've faced while working with AI in art? What lessons have you learned from these challenges?

A: The industry moves way fast. One update and some prompt or keyword might have quite different results. What I learned from this, personally, is to not get stuck on any one style or prompt for too long, keep moving, always experimenting. 

One of the biggest differences between Dall-E 2 and 3 is foreign languages, it seems 3 got access to translation abilities. I used to be able to confuse it with Finnish words and now it knows all my tricks, haha. It's fun and weird to watch this stuff grow and learn.

Q: Of all the pieces you've created, do you have a personal favorite or one that holds special significance to you?

A: It's honestly the very first one. It's not a fancy piece of art by any means, but the anticipation of pressing 'Generate' for the first time and having no idea what's going to happen just stuck with me forever :D

Q: How might people support you and your art?

A: I am on X @ AnetteElbeck, or you can tip me on ko-fi.com/anelyn

Q: Looking ahead, what are your aspirations or goals for your art? Where do you see your journey with AI-assisted artwork taking you in the future?

A: The main goal of my X account is still to spread joy and try to make people smile, I don't think that will change any time soon. I hope my account could be a reliable source of wholesome cuteness and endless 'dawww!'s

Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in starting to create artwork using AI?

A: Just try random stuff! Anything at all. Many generative AI models can make you something pretty cool from a very short prompt! Being a good writer/describer of things helps if you are trying to get something really really specific, but it's no requirement to getting a nice looking image, sometimes you will just bump into something awesome by pure accident, so test, try everything.

Thank you, Anelyn, for talking with us! If you would like to ask Anelyn more questions or just leave a comment, head to this X thread. Be sure to follow her on X!