PAPERSOLDIERS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE chatTGPT

I wasn’t able to resist either the charm (or perhaps the future slavery?) of AI in drawing my papersoldiers. The reality is that they have indeed reached a level of definition I could never have hoped to achieve. I think a few examples can give a better idea—more than words—of what I’m talking about.

By observing these figures, one can notice, for example, how the grip has improved significantly, as well as the facial features and the folds of the clothing.

Naturally, AI has to be guided, so I changed the color of the trousers and a few other details, but the result belongs—unfortunately—to it.

A good example of what I’m saying can be seen in the following template; in this case, I needed to reproduce a Sergeant of Gustavus Adolphus’s Yellow Brigade. I took a reference example and transformed it. As you can see, the helmet could not be reproduced correctly, so I had to make it myself by hand and apply it to the AI model. The burnishing of the armor was also not accurate, nor was the color of the uniform. In this case, human intervention made it possible to enhance and improve the AI result. At the moment, I am preparing the figures and will proceed to take photographs of this colorful 17th-century unit.

But here down, finally, is the result of applying AI: the original figure from 2014 was rather basic, then somewhat improved in 2024. But the 2026 figure—directly derived from the 2014 one—shows how AI has enhanced the quality of the drawings, reaching its highest expressive level. I am also preparing paper soldiers of this officer.

And so I found myself drawn into a historical period I had never wanted to tackle: WWII, and specifically (here bottom) the German troops during the bloody Battle of Stalingrad. In this case, AI was of total support and, once properly guided, produced an excellent result.

Likewise for a soldier of a Prussian regiment during the Seven Years’ War. As can be seen, AI has to be “trained,” but the difference between 2015 and 2026 appears enormous.