My first attempt at AI image generation

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My friend’s birthday is coming up, and I wanted a birthday card. I hadn’t really had enough time to look for something special, and all the generic cards aimed at men tend to feature things that do not interest him (cars, fishing, golf etc.) I wanted to make something appropriate but I’m not much of an artist. So I had the idea of trying AI to make me a picture. Many years ago we used to role-play and his character was Sir Gawain (one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table). One of the key legends featuring Sir Gawain is ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, a 14th century romance. The story describes how, at a new year feast, King Arthur will not allow the feasting to begin until they have witnessed some marvel. A mysterious green knight arrives, and challenges any man to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts the challenge and chops off his head, whereupon the Green Knight picks up his head, reminds Gawain of the appointed time, and leaves, to return the following year to administer his return blow. I wanted to use this as the basis for a humourous birthday card, but I didn’t really know where to start. I began by searching the web for an image of Gawain and the Green Knight that I liked, and then used that as the basis for the picture I wanted. The AI itself actually helped guide me regarding what to ask for, and this is the end result. I was quite pleased; if I had had more time (leaving things to the last minute again!!) I would have tried tweaking it some more. Not bad for a first try though. The strangest thing was that at every step of the process, as well as doing what I asked (roughly!) the AI also altered some other aspects. So each iteration of the image is a little bit different to the previous one even though I didn’t ask for those changes. For example when I asked it to change the position of the speech bubble, it also subtly changed the lighting, the expression on Gawain’s face, the colour of his hair, and the ‘sharpness’ of the entire scene. Have you tried AI image generation? How were the results? Did you get what you wanted? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.