Six Degrees From Handsome

No person born on this Earth is perfect. So, don't be afraid to look. The mirror won't bite. It may sting according to how you view your external self. Common sense advise to self-love may seem like a no-nonsense approach, but the psychology behind it is solid.

We are always told from an early age to "accept yourself". It's the one thing you can't change. Yourself is your total package. Your external and internal self, together with your consciousness, compose your being.

Each of us are unique in our own way. We all possess strengths as well as weakness. What we are advised to concentrate on is our strengths. Enhance those areas we know work for the betterment of our lives.

The areas that need additional attention should be developed by pacing ourselves. We can't fix or repair instantly or all at the same time what we feel is lacking in any area of our lives. It's a slow process.

When we do recognize or realize any weakness, the path to healing in those areas may be one that is under our control. Others may require outside assistance.

I have always known that a positive attitude is essential to feeling our best self. Also, surrounding yourself with family and friends who believe in uplifting you and are positive also goes a long way to building confidence in yourself.

I feel the most important quality any of us possesses is inner beauty. Forget what society tells you or defines for you what beauty should consist of.

Pre-defined notions of how we should look, feel, or act in certain situations are just that...notions. If you subscribe to what others define as beautiful, then you are not living your life, but the life someone else has sculptured for you.

If you know your inner self and have resolved that the person you see and feel internally is one you want to run with, then by all means do so.

Self-care, together with natural beauty is the best option. There is nothing wrong with any type of enhancement you choose. As long as it is your choice and not based upon standards, then the decision is yours to move forward.

How we view ourselves is how others will view us.

Don't be afraid to look. Your reflection may be a thing of handsomeness.

In preparing this fractal and stable diffusion art project, I wanted to portray a male face. Society too often places emphasis on the female anatomy using it as a basis for defining perfection. In my fractal art project, I wanted to reflect on the male body. My prose is only my thoughts on the institution of beauty.

I utilized the fractal rendering program, Apophysis. The pure fractals I created were designed in an advanced version, Apophysis 7X. I feel both enhanced the project when combined with the stable diffusion images below.

The first pure fractal served as a mirror. The beauty of this fractal was that it resembled a portal with several entrances. One could look at the many features of the face. The second pure fractal was used as an accessory.

Below is the information I previously shared about StarryAI that I feel will be of interest and useful:

Stable Diffusion is a text-to-image latent diffusion model released in 2022 and trained on 512x512 images from the LAION-5B dataset. The dataset is used to generate detailed images using text prompts. ¹ The text prompt is required, as it provide the software with a description of your desired image.

Stable Diffusion was developed by the CompVis group at LMU Munich. The model was released by Stability AI, CompVis and Runway with support from EleutherAI and LAION. ¹

Stable Diffusion uses a “diffusion” process at runtime. Starting with only noise and a text prompt, the software gradually improves the image until it is entirely free of noise. Running their progression process creates the image from your text description.¹

Through the AI Generated Art License at StarryAI, creations are made to be used freely by the creator. The license states that:

• You own the copyright to your creations;
• Commercial and non-commercial purposes are permitted; and
• No permission is needed (though attribution is appreciated. ¹

For my project, I designed two diffusion images. One was a landscape image that included mountains. This image served as the background scene.

The other, is the face of a male I used as the basis of my short story and project.

Designing a stable diffusion image begins with the type of software, method used, and text descriptions. Both images were designed in the stable diffusion program, StarryAI.

Once my images are created, I utilize my Annual Pro Membership Subscription at Canva to blend my images and complete my project.

Below are my steps. After uploading all images, the first step is to build my background. The stable diffusion image for the mountains worked well. However, it only filled half the canvas. I duplicated the image and repositioned both to create the mountain setting.

I decided on a mountainous landscape since I was dealing with a male face as my primary image.

Next I added the make face. Finally, I added my two pure fractals that were used as mirrors.

I included above an additional version of the project that showed water reflections. The program I used to achieve this editing feature was LunaPic.

Below is my completed project: