~Character Evolution Page | Grotesque, A Gothic Epic |

Grotesque ~ A Gothic Epic is one of the first online novels to utilize AI technology in story character presentation. Although the novel and its character illustrations were created decades before AI was widely available on the internet, Graven has since rendered his characters through AI to provide them with life-like features, including audio and video animation. For example, the main character in the story is Lazarus Gogu, who is introduced as an abbey squire, residing in the catacombs of the Abbaye des Gardiens in Central France. His catacomb mentor was Friar Delon Odino. We will use these story characters as examples in character evolution.

Most all of Graven's characters were inspired by historical paintings, before the advent of AI on the internet (note: the work was being written at the same time the internet was just coming off metered service with companies such as 'AOL – America Online') ~ the internet was still inaccessible to 95%+ of the global population. With that in mind, for illustrated and digital examples of the evolution of character presentations, let us examine 2 characters ~ both Lazarus Gogu and Friar Delon Odino ~ as they progress through 3 distinct stages of character development since the year 2000:

1. The historical paintings used as models for the characters.

2. An AI representation of the initial painting in step 1.

3. AI animation sequences based on the AI image representation in step 2.

Below, are the evolution descriptions of two notable characters in the work, Lazarus Gogu and Friar Odino. Let us first examine the main protagonist in the story, Lazarus Gogu.

LAZARUS GOGU ~ From Concept to Painted Portrait

Lazarus' appearance was initially inspired by a painting of a Dutch Golden Age painter named, Rembrandt. The 1660 painting was that of his son, Titus. Lazarus was modeled after Titus, dressed in monks' attire, as he appeared in the painting (which now hangs in the Rijksmuseun in Amsterdam). A copy of that painting is below.

LAZARUS GOGU ~ From Painted Portrait to AI Rendering

When AI services were first introduced to the wider public, the character images from Grotesque ~ A Gothic Epic were uploaded for AI rendering, in order to give them a more life~like appearance (vs. painted images). After several renderings using AI, Lazarus was now free from the Rebrandt's canvas and, he now existed in a reproduced digital format. Several different static images were created, giving Lazarus a portfolio of still images, with slight variations between them. It would serve the purpsoe of dropping images into the online work that were somewhat unique (instead of using the same portrait repeatedly). This was a notable improvement from the single static image of Rembrandt's painting; however, Lazarus still wasn't 'alive', so to speak. Below is a copy of one of those AI static image renderings.

FRIAR DELON ODINO ~ From Concept to Painted Portrait

As internet AI services became more evolved, offering brand new image~to~animation conversion services, the characters in Grotesque ~ A Gothic Epic underwent another stage of evolution. The following year, the work's AI-rendered character images were then provided to several internet-facing AI service providers for the purposes of creating animation sequences from the renderings. The results were no~doubt astonishing ~ the characters were now truly "alive". Perhaps one day, when 3D projection services show up, Lazarus will then be able to walk around inside your very own living room! If you would like to see a sample compilation of Lazarus' animation sequences, the link below will provide you with the Mp4 file to download.

LAZARUS GOGU ~ From AI Rendering to Full Animation

Lazarus Comes To Life! (Click Here To Download Mp4)

For the character Friar Delon Odino, Graven sought after the stereotypical overweight yet strong 'happy drunk monk' to serve as Lazarus' caretaker and mentor down in the abbey catacombs, where the Friar was also assigned his permanent duties and 'coincidentally' with ample private access to the abbey's wine cellar. For such a character, Graven combed through the paintings of Eduard von Grützner, a master German painter who also excelled in the art of 'happy drunk monks' on canvas. Of his many wonderful paintings, Graven selected the below painting as the most adequate representation of Friar Odino's features and expression.

FRIAR DELON ODINO ~ From Painted Portrait to AI Rendering

And finally, we know that AI can provide audio content as well as video content. You might now be wondering what Lazarus and Odino sound like, especially after watching them come to life right in front of you. Would you care to hear them? How about a nice private conversation between the two of them, which actually occurs in Chapter 3 of Grotesque, A Gothic Epic? The conversation was created this way ~ initially, the character's voices (tones, inflections, pitch, speed, clarity, etc.) were chosen which Graven thought would best fit the two characters that he had already constructed in his mind. Then, an exchange between them was identified in chapter 3 of the work, which also contains very important clues regarding subsequent events within the work. The words from each character's dialogue was extracted into two separate text documents. Each document contained only those of a single character, and each sentence was placed on a single line, in exact dialogue sequence. The end result: one file with strictly Lazarus' sentences, and another file with strictly Odino's sentences. The files were provided as input for AI text~to~speech services. The resulting speech files of the two chosen voices was supplied as 2 Mp3 files. These files were sliced up into smaller Mp3 files, and then reassembled and stacked between one another, within a single audio file via audio editing software. The resulting effect was the simulated but realistically-sounding conversation between Lazarus and Odino, And to put the icing on the cake, sound effects were overlaid within the conversation to give the listener the audio appearance of a setting, and a conversation occurring within that setting. The Mp3 download link is provided below.

Lazarus and Friar Odino Talk in the Wine Cellar! (Click Here To Download Mp3)

A copy of the painted portrait was uploaded to an AI service provider with instructions to create AI renderings of the supplied image ~ several renderings were created. The picture below was one of those renderings, which finally set Odino free of his canvas prison.

FRIAR DELON ODINO ~ From AI Rendering to Full Animation

As with Lazarus' AI~rendered images, Friar Odino's rendered images were also later supplied to AI content service providers to create animation sequences from the still images. And like those of Lazarus, Friar Odino's animation results were also stunning and incredible. To see for yourself, a link is provided below, if you wish to download and watch the Mp4 sample file of Friar Odino.

Friar Odino Comes To Life! (Click Here To Download Mp4)