Using Stable Diffusion to create simple 3d characters

I made a short video explaining how to use Stable Diffusion to create simple 3d models for print books or anything else you might want to use them for.

I used Krita to edit the photos but pretty much any image editor would do, you just need to be able to make selections and erase.

Here are the steps -

Step One

Go to https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

or https://stablediffusionweb.com/#demo

and enter a prompt for the image you want.

For this tutorial, I put "robot tabletop miniatures" and "astronaut tabletop miniatures". I used "tabletop miniatures" as I knew this would give a 3d figure that would look reasonably close to whatever I wanted.

Use the guidance scale at the bottom (if available) to tweak the settings.

I normally try to keep it between one and nine but experiment and see what you come up with.

After anything between 30 seconds and a minute, you should get your generated pictures.

If you don't get anything you like, keep trying!

Add more keywords and move the guidance scale until you get something you are happy with.

When you are done just right click or hold the image to download it.

It gave me separate images, one with an Astronaut and another with a Robot.

So now lets edit them.

Step Two

Lets take the Astronaut as an example.

I used the "Magic Wand" to select a contiguous colour to erase large sections by clicking on a part of the image that is a different colour to the Astronaut. You can then hold the shift key and click to add to the selection. If you then click "Cut" from the Edit menu, it will remove everything you have selected.

I then chose the Brush (in Krita) and changed its attribute to Erase and simply clicked and dragged over the remaining parts of the image I didn't want. I would use small strokes and release the mouse / pen regularly otherwise if you make a mistake and Undo, it will put everything back!

Use the zoom and change the size of the tooltip to erase fine areas.

You should now have a relatively clean picture of an Astronaut surrounded by a grid denoting transparency.

Save the file through the "Export" menu as a PNG file. This will preserve the transparency.

Congratulations, you now have an image to use in a book or anywhere else you may need an Astronaut!

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