#shvarts

[ruscatontheroof]

"The Boyar's Treat" V. Shvarts (1865)

"Угощение боярина" В.Шварц (1865)

[sovietpaintings]

На Восстановлении Сталинграда | At Stalingrad's Restoration;

Elizaveta Shvarts, 1943.

[vivalgi]

This post is primarily meant for all the doubters, naysayers and people in denial who ganged up against me when I first declared my suspicions that wannabe Malfoy revealed on @candlelightgames' Instagram post might be AI generated.

I will point out some of the most obvious signs of AI usage after the break but first I want to quote Owen Wilson: "Wow!" Usually half the AI image detectors fail to do their job, but never before have I seen such a unanimous decision - all 7 out of 7 online tools that I managed to find are saying that the Project Spellstruck's first character art is most likely AI:

Now, onto the analysis. People are still expecting clearly visible errors from generated images, such as irregular amount of fingers or something going through another object, but AI has come a long way and it's becoming harder to point out obvious signs without focusing hard. It's even able to create a vague resemblance of symmetry and repeating elements. AI generated art isn't often published "straight out of the oven" either. Artists-prompters make the AI do a lot of inpainting and add their own little touch-ups until the images are more or less presentable. A character has 16 fingers? Just mark the problematic area you want to be regenerated, maybe even make a rough sketch over it and then have the program do its job again. Even Bardick's design evolution, CL has demonstrated, looks very similar to the typical AI-assisted workflow I just described:

It's hard to put into words what makes art feel and look AI, but don't worry, doubters, I can also point out some strange elements that strongly hint at this character art being largely made by AI.

Below is the highest quality image I could get, so you can come back to it and zoom in if you want to see the clean version without my scribbles:

The coat's lapels

In the corner of the left lapel there's this triangular piece:

Whatever it's meant to be, it's a single solid object and not nearly as incoherent as what's happening on the opposite side:

The triangular shape seems to be made up of 3 disconnected sticks and the ends of the golden protruding lines that flow into that corner, become intrusions, although they don't line up very well either. Try to explain what the artist was attempting to do here. It's a very clear example of AI making up some fuzzy incoherent details. No need to find any further evidence really, but let's move on.

Occasional double vision effect around the edge of the golden hem, creating parallel running lines (a typical thing I've noticed image generators tend to do):

The pants and belt

That wobbly dotted line is the edge of his pants:

I've also traced the lines of the belt buckle, so you can see exactly how much it makes sense upon closer look. Not a lot, right? Also, the prong melts into the buckle, doesn't even go through the belt's hole and there's more fuzzy scribble around it.

Shadows

The shirt's collar creates shadows to both sides of it:

The lighting source seems to be behind the guy as the corner of the collar is further from the viewer than the shadow it casts:

Some other shadows are suspicious as well but not so obviously bad to confidently demonstrate them.

This is not an attempt to turn anyone against AI, but merely an analysis to show the most obvious signs that this dude was probably more or less generated by AI. If you like this kind of artificial art and are fine with Candlelight or any other studio/artist using it, then I won't stop you from enjoying it. If you have a hard time recognizing AI art then I truly envy you, ignorance is bliss as the saying goes. However, please don't come to proudly demonstrate your ignorance and argue with me or even worse, try to make fun of me because you think I'm wrong in saying that this character art was generated with AI. As I've now proven, it most likely is. It's too early to turn into an overprotective fangirl over a project we still know barely anything about.

[books-in-order]

Books of Andrew Shvarts in order

Andrew Shvarts is a Russian-American author who is best known as the author of the Royal Bastards series. He was actually born in the Soviet Union, but immigrated to the United States when he was just four years old.

Royal Bastards

Royal Bastards (2017) — Amazon US | Amazon UK

City of Bastards (2018) — Amazon US | Amazon UK

War of the Bastards (2019) — Amazon US | Amazon UK

Standalone Novels

It Ends in Fire (2021) — Amazon US | Amazon UK

[minetteskvareninova]

When an actor is pretty and also can sing. Reblog if you agree.

[screenshotingmonstertv]

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Queer MG/YA Set at Magic School

Gallowgate by K.R. Alexander (MG) It Ends in Fire by Andrew Shvarts (YA) Scholars and Sorcery series by Eleanor Beresford (YA) A Hundred Vicious Turns by Lee Paige O’Brien (YA) My Name is Magic by Xan van Rooyen (YA) Bonus: These are all prose novels, but for a YA graphic novel set at a magical culinary school, check out Basil and Oregano by Melissa Capriglione Double Bonus: The anthology The…

[jo-rouge]

Евгений Шварц | Evgeniy Shvarts | Aeterna: Part One ( Этерна. Часть первая, 2022 )

[roehenstart]

Palm Sunday at Moscow with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in a Patriarchal Procession. By Vyacheslav Grigorievich Shvarts, 1865.

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

nothing more painful than to see the play you illustrated on stage

[theprofessorofdesire]

From the age of 15, Elena Shvarts was a legend of the Soviet underground literary world: some considered her a prophet, others - an echo of a bygone age. She was welcomed by Akhmatova, loved by Brodsky and her poetry breached Soviet borders to be published in émigré journals abroad.

In the USSR, her work was mostly published through samizdat - a form of underground self-publishing. Only from the second half of the 80s onwards was she able to publish in official magazines. »Her work is full of religious imagery: angels, demons, fools-in-Christ, icons and visions of heaven and hell, but the belief which illuminates the poems is far from orthodox. Shvarts developed her own, highly distinctive poetic religion, filled with references to Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Catholicism, superstition and folklore, but adhering closely to a personal vision. In her writing, poetry itself is the sacred act, and the poet is in consequence a saint and martyr, someone picked out for a fateful, prophetic and lonely life. She writes in one poem: “When an angel carries away my soul/ All shrouded in fog, folded in flames/ I have no body, no tears to weep/ Just a bag in my heart, full of poems.”

It is said that the Soviet censor once offered her the opportunity to be published officially, if she removed all references to the soul in her poems. She refused. However, despite her high-mindedness and the austerity of her vision, Shvarts’s poetry is never portentous or pompous. It is leavened by her astringent wit and her capacity for self-mockery. It is also highly lyrical, despite its eccentric appearance, and charged with an often tragic tension.« [The Guardian]

Via @sovietjewisharchive (Instagram)

[julianerui]

"The snow, wondering at the ancient pair, Cloaks them in soft grey down, bemused And the rat blows in the ear's thin cup (But in vain) - like a wordless Muse."

Elena Shvarts

[movienized-com]

Sotsseti

Sotsseti (Serie 2023) #LyubovAksyonova #KirillKaro #EldarKalimulin #EvgeniyShvarts #IvanMulin #KaterinaBekker Mehr auf:

Serie / Соцсети Jahr: 2023 Genre: Comedy / Drama / SciFi Hauptrollen: Lyubov Aksyonova, Kirill Käro, Eldar Kalimulin, Evgeniy Shvarts, Ivan Mulin, Katerina Bekker, Anton Kuznetsov, Sergey Pokhodaev, Danil Tyabin, Vladimir Selivanov, Inna Kolyada, Aleksey Goman … Serienbeschreibung: Sechs Szenen, die in Tomsk, Russland, im Jahr 2021, 2025 und 2030 spielen, untersuchen das Verhältnis zwischen…

[gutsfics]

YOOOO. ANDREW PBWRITER HAS PUBLISHED BOOKS. FUCK YES THATS SO POGGERS

[saetiate]

⸺ on michael kaiser, blue lock.

catherine lacey // heavensghost // thirstiness is not equal division, kaveh akbar // miniatures, cassandra de alba // Elena Shvarts, “I was thinking…” translated by Stephanie Sandler // it is right to draw their fur, dave eggers // sam sax // Notebooks (2017), by Tennessee Williams

[minetteskvareninova]

Not to be bisexual but. Oh my God.