Gabrella: Update 17

Published by

atcDave

January 29, 2026

After a couple days taking care of business back at the Castle, we set out to meet up with Elhan and the elves. They were pleased we had the Lanthorn, it meant they could now locate their home city. Since I still needed to find Irenicus, we set off together.

*A long day’s walk back to their patch of woods.*

*The elven city of Suldanessellar was over run by foul things. We helped clearing things out and protecting the citizens.*

*But much damage had been done and we led as many to safety as we could.*

*At last I faced Irenicus himself. This was a whole team effort, all six of us brought him down.*

But this didn’t end things. We found ourselves dragged after him to the Abyss, which led to another battle to finally settle things. Oddly, this battle was easier. Like Irenicus was already somehow diminished by his previous loss. I’m not complaining! A peace came over me, my pieces were all back together.

*The elves threw a great celebration and we were guests of honor. We spent several days together. We had just started talking about how we could help them rebuild, when something else came up…*

*****

I have to start this with a sad story.
Two days ago all my save files in BG2 disappeared. Actually more than just the saves, *everything* from the BG2 Documents folder was just gone. I have no real idea why, I had done a Windows Update that day, and a virus scan. No notes or messages of anything wrong, and nothing else seems to be wrong. Just that one thing, gone. I was able to rebuild the game files easily, I simply copied all the Documents Folder from BG1 to BG2. All my settings are back and I can play fine. But Gabrella is gone, unless I wanted to start the whole game over. I was about 80% through, so I think I’ll pass on that.
I’ve played this enough times I can continue this Illustrated story. At this point, I’m most interested in getting to the Epilogue. So I’ll be back next week with ToB and Epilogue. Well a faux ToB anyway.

This is another set of renders done entirely with SeeDream. That really is an amazing tool. I’ll say its easy, although the process can get involved. Often it involves creating new renders of several characters (to get their clothes, emotions, postures right). I use my range of Renderers for this, mostly DALLE and SeeDream. Then I use SeeDream to put the elements together. Sometimes tweeking is required to get positions and details right. Putting the whole team together is fussy even with six character renders. But this is all *doable* in a way it wasn’t for me just a month ago.

4 responses to “Gabrella: Update 17”

Zeno

January 29, 2026

Man, that sucks! Have you looked in the virus scanner “quarantine” files? Sometimes if Windows Defender/McAffee/etc get a bee in their bonnet about something it will move it to quarantine without necessarily telling you. I’ve also had OneDrive do funky things like that occasionally – as it sometimes relocates things between regular “My Documents” and “OneDrive/My Documents”.

I love the style of lots of these images – particularly with the forest scenery. I don’t like that I feel like I have less control of the style with SeeDream than I do with DALLE, but I don’t mind as much as I do with some of the other render AIs because I still like the style(s) that SeeDream seems to use natively.

The only quibble I have is that if SeeDream has to render characters from a significantly different perspective than the source image it sometimes gets a little wonky with the proportions. Like how Irenicus and Gabriella seem to have slightly too big heads for their bodies in their treetop faceoff. I suspect their source images were both facing the camera.

But so many of these look like they could have come straight out of an illustrated fantasy novel! Marching through the woods with the elves. Crossing the bridge with a burning elven town in the background. The final meal together. And being able to drop in source imagery of trolls, dragons, and foes like Irenicus makes things *so* *much* easier its not even funny. Doing the Steel Watchers in my last set – or things like Intellect Devourers in my current set – took days to get something palatable with DALLE. And now I can just grab a Monster Manual image or something and drop it in and off I go.

Still working on coaxing better action out of SeeDream. Will make a blog post about that when I feel like I’ve got a good handle on it. And the cost still means I use DALLE whenever practical so that I’ve got SeeDream available where its really needed. But I feel like a lot of my current stumbling blocks with SeeDream are as much about me learning to use it to its best advantage as they are about the tool’s inherent capabilities.

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1. atcDave
  
  January 29, 2026
  
  Yeah I’ve poked all around, it’s either utterly gone or hidden beyond my abilities to find. Either way, it’s not like I *need* to finish the game again. But I’ll miss Gabby and Bull, usually I get to plan my goodbye a little better.
  
  The troll was actually rendered from text! Your description, except I switch “triangular nose” to “pointed nose”. SeeDream does far better with this one than DALLE ever did for me.
  
  Yeah the Gabby/Irenicus duel is problematic. I wanted to do something much bigger, more characters. But I found exactly one image of Irenicus in a compatible style, and it was at a funny angle (looking over his shoulder). I got this one, which I thought looked suggestive of what I wanted, and was done with this!
  
  But some of those others, the ones you mention, were very exciting.
  
  I think you’re exactly right about setting the action scenes. The frustrations are maybe no worse than learning DALLE. Really better in most ways, it’s next generation more sophisticated I think. Although it is slower and more expensive, which adds another level of frustration sometimes. The good news is, a lot of what we know can be applied.
  
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Zeno

January 29, 2026

I’ll have Jasper’s final (or possibly next-to-final depending upon how I do wrap up) within the next week or so. Mostly stuck for now on deciding how Jasper would handle the final story decision. So many choices for the final confrontations with the Emperor/ Orpheus/ Netherbrain that I’m having trouble deciding which way he goes.

But since one of the possibilities involves becoming a Mind Flayer in order to gain the ability to counter the Netherbrain – and according to lore Gnomes don’t quite transition in the same way other species do (when Gnomes transition the host personality stays dominant) – here’s a “Jasper as Illithid” render that I may or may not end up using.

https://openart.ai/share/OWxkWnV1TkVtaFUyUHp3Z1R6NVU7aHR0cHM6Ly9jZG4ub3BlbmFydC5haS91cGxvYWRzL2ltYWdlXzBJaEFkYUFpXzE3Njk2NjIyNDkyNTZfNTEyLndlYnA

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1. atcDave
  
  January 29, 2026
  
  Illithid Jasper is awesome! You know, in the more traditional horrific sense of the word…
  
  But very funny. Of course I’ll look forward to seeing more.
  
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