Still experimenting... and I need your help!
Your taste and perspective will decide right direction for my entry.
While exploring the open collections mentioned in the contest brief, I found myself drawn to one particular aspect of history: the extraordinary artistry of fashion captured through brushstrokes.
That’s what sparked the idea of Her, a series where I use AI to revisit, revive, and reimagine iconic women from the past, bringing their timeless elegance into a contemporary visual language.
I want to explore how their fashion, presence, and individuality might translate through a modern lens while still honouring the artistry and spirit of the original works.
I’m excited to see where this exploration leads, and I’d love to know what resonates with you more.
Love that direction! Extraordinary artistry of fashion from open collections is such a rich pick - so much texture and history to play with! Recraft Styles Challenge mein yeh angle definitely stands out! Voted for this, excited to see where you take it!
Can AI really juggle 10 REFERENCES? Let's put it to the test!! 👀
👁️ Goal: Create a Halloween poster: a girl doomscrolling in bed while Munch's Scream screams right behind her, and she doesn't notice, the title is "Screen time: 7h 42m. Time left: 0.", while mixing drastically different styles in my refs (anime, baroque chiaroscuro, Munch's expressionism, pixel art).
⚒️ Model: FLUX 3 Image Klein
🌪️ Process: I generated my refs (I love complicating my life yes) and garthered the original paintings, fed it to Flux with a detailed prompt on how to use each of the ref I uploaded.
I uploaded the two best results I got, but it was a few back and forth to get every detail correct! My rating on how the model respected each of my refs (average of both outcomes):
- Palette 5/5
- The Scream 3/5
- De La Tour lighting 3/5
- Paper texture 5/5
- Face 5/5
- Pose 5/5
- Velvet & linen 3/5
- Sky 2/5 (swapped my swirls for a sunset on the first one)
- Title 5/5
- Sketch 4/5 (because why was she filled on the second one!!)
✨ Overall rating: 4/5
✍️ Takeaway: Keep the refs very specific and your prompt very detailed. The model doesn't understand "vibes" (the paint swirls became a sunset) only but is very good at following precise instructions (pixel title was perfectly copied), unlike MidJourney for example which is very good at interpretingvibes.
The New Book of Beasts
A Medieval Bestiary of Modern Human Nature
What if medieval bestiaries described the habits of modern people instead of mythical creatures?
For the Recraft × Contra Styles Challenge, I created Illuminated Bestiary, a custom Recraft Style inspired by public-domain illustrations from 13th–15th-century manuscripts.
I used historical references from the Public Domain Image Archive to explore medieval animal anatomy, ornamental details, ink drawings, and muted natural pigments.
Then I applied the style to eight imaginary beasts, each representing a familiar modern behavior: overthinking, people-pleasing, doomscrolling, procrastination, ghosting, perfectionism, attention-seeking, and impostor syndrome.
The result is a collection of creatures that look like they belong in a centuries-old manuscript, even though their habits are very much our own.
I finally updated my personal website, and you can actually "dye" your own canvas on it! 🎨
I've been experimenting with how to bring something physical into a digital space. The idea came from my growing interest in natural dyes and traditional textile-making, which I've been exploring a lot lately.
I designed and built the whole experience in one day using Figma, Claude and Netlify. It's been pretty exciting to see how AI makes ideas that once felt technically out of reach something I can now experiment with and build on my own.
I'm also open to fractional creative director roles, so if you know a team building something meaningful, I'd love to connect!
Come play with it, and please let me know if you find any bugs 🐛
mya-nguyen.com