AI and Me Again

Commenting on Tuesday’s “AI and Me” post, Lily wrote, “Fascinating! You must start with some reality or is it like drawing a portrait? May we see STANA alongside her avatar please?”

I don’t know what you would call my process, but I simply start with a bare-bones command, for example, “70-year-old balding male wearing glasses, Red Sox T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, in Fenway Park.” 

After AI generates an image according to my initial command, I will examine the image, determine what changes are necessary and send a new command based on those changes.

The first or second command usually is not exactly what I want and I may repeat tweaking the image three, four, five or even more times. (Yesterday’s image of me in the Red Sox T-shirt was a rare one-command success!)

Lily’s wish is my command and the image below is me and my avatar side-by-side. I picked a photo where I was wearing an outfit and hairdo similar to my AI image. However, I had none wearing eyeglasses, so I generated a pair via AI and pasted the eyeglasses onto my photograph.

Wearing Boston Proper

Marius Goring femulating in French television’s The O Agency Files (1968). 

AI and Me

If you have been following along during the past year or so, you know that I have been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create images for this blog. I am having a lot of fun in the process and plan to continue using AI ’til the cows come home.

Saturday was a rainy day and I cancelled my plans to do desperately-needed yard work (darn!). Instead, I sat in front of the television watching TCM with my MacBook Pro in my lap. 

As luck would have it, TCM was showing Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge, a 1930’s mystery that I vaguely recall seeing before. And even more vaguely, I seemed to recall that there was some crossdressing in the film. Next thing I knew, one of the bad guys is in full and convincing femulation mode and remained so for the next 10 minutes of the film.

After the film, I began playing with AI on my laptop wondering how well AI would work generating an image of me en homme and en femme. 

I tried en homme first and hit a home run on my first attempt. I was shocked how closely the AI image resembled the real me. My AI image could use a little more hair, but now I was ready to try an image of me en femme.

Not so fast, Big Girl! 

I spent about an hour generating en femme images, but none of them were me. There were two problems: the hairdo and the eyebrows. 

No matter what I tried, I could not get AI to generate the short blonde hairstyles I normally wear. What AI generated were styles that were either too long or too big. I tried a workaround by commanding AI to generate a “very short blonde men’s haircut” and that finally did the trick.

The eyebrows problem had me stumped for a long time. If AI’s output was a female or a male en femme, it insisted on thin, plucked and arched eyebrows. And I don't have thin, plucked and arched eyebrows! Asking for “thick eyebrows” did not work.

I was close to throwing in the towel when I thought that if AI would not give me the eyebrows I wanted, I would hide the eyebrows it wanted. Eyeglasses should do the trick and when I added eyeglasses to my AI command, voila! that solved the problem. (Although most of my photos don’t show it, I do wear eyeglasses much of the time that I am en femme.)

The images below are the results. 

In my opinion, the en homme image is so good that it is scary, while the en femme image is close and maybe a cigar.

Wearing Tory Burch

Frank Puglia femulating in the 1937 film Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge.

Stuff 69: Non-Expert Advice

By J.J. Atwell

I’ll say it again

As I said in Stuff #47 that Stana published on October 14, 2024, I’m not an expert. I’m just somebody with an opinion on CDing who also enjoys writing about it. I happily report my observations of the real world and the sometimes imaginary world inside my head. In other words, I have an opinion and I’m not afraid to write about it. 

Why am I repeating this?

Because there are so many “experts” out there already. I just want to present my opinions and offer advice from my perspective as an ordinary CD. I have no formal training in the subject. I have nothing to base my writing on other than my real life interactions. 

No, I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do read a lot on the subject of CDing. I find even that is somewhat problematic as those authors may not be representative of me. Just like you should be aware that just because I’m writing something here in Stuff, it doesn’t mean it applies to you. Or that it is even accurate. 

Be Yourself

Having said all that, I hope my readers find my writing to be interesting, amusing, helpful and provides food for thought. It’s always good to be a bit introspective in life. Please take what I write and think if it applies to your personal circumstance and life experience. 

I’ve chatted with several of the other authors that Stana regularly publishes here on Femulate and we all have our own perspective. We all enjoy writing about our views, but, again, they are our views. As far as I know, none of us have any academic qualifications to dispense advice. You should decide for yourself whenever you read anything online as to the applicability of it to your life. 

I’ll be back

Yes, I’ll be finding more Stuff to write about. I welcome comments and suggestions here on Stana’s page (in the Comments below) or by email at Jenn6nov at-sign gmail dot com.

Wearing Ann Klein

Norah out and about at the Wadsworth Antheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut