Bringing Fantasy to Life: How AI Art Helped Me Visualize N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth
As a design leader in the tech industry, I’ve watched the AI revolution unfold with equal parts curiosity and excitement. But it wasn’t until I found myself deep in N.K. Jemisin’s “The Broken Earth” trilogy that I discovered what might be my favorite use case for generative AI: bringing beloved literary characters to life through art.
The idea struck me halfway through the second book. Jemisin’s world-building had cast such a spell that I could see her characters vividly in my mind’s eye — Essun wielding devastating orogeny with controlled fury, Alabaster’s commanding presence tinged with barely-concealed pain, and young Nassun’s journey from innocence to power. As a visual thinker and designer, I wanted to capture these mental images before diving into the final book.
What started as a personal project using AI art generation turned into an unexpected self-taught in prompt engineering, one that every designer should experience firsthand.
The Magic of Personal Projects in Learning AI
We often approach new technologies from a strictly professional angle — how can this tool improve our workflows or solve business problems? But I’ve found that personal, even “selfish” projects can be the most effective teachers. When you’re driven by genuine enthusiasm rather than deadlines or deliverables, you’re more willing to experiment, fail, and iterate.
In my case, crafting prompts to generate character art for “The Broken Earth” taught me more about working with AI than any tutorial could have. I learned to think like the model, breaking down complex visual concepts into clear, specific instructions. How do you convey the weight of centuries in Alabaster’s stance? How do you capture the strange beauty of stone eaters like Hoa? How do you make the floating Onyx obelisk become the shape and size described so masterfully by Jemisin in the second book?
These creative challenges pushed me to understand the nuances of prompt engineering in a way that felt natural and engaging.
The Designer’s Perspective
As a Senior Design leader at a PLG SaaS company, I’m constantly thinking about how to make complex systems more intuitive and accessible. Working with AI art generation reminded me of the early days of learning design software — there’s a similar process of understanding the tool’s capabilities and limitations, developing a feel for its “language,” and learning to translate your vision into something the system can understand.
This experience has profound implications for how we approach AI in design:
First, it highlights the importance of hands-on experimentation. Reading about prompt engineering is one thing; actually crafting and refining prompts to achieve a specific creative vision is another entirely.
Second, it demonstrates how AI can augment rather than replace creative expression. The art I generated wasn’t about replacing human creativity — it was about giving form to the imagination that Jemisin’s words had already sparked.
The Literary Connection
There’s something particularly meaningful about using AI to visualize characters from a series like “The Broken Earth,” which itself grapples with themes of power, technology, and human potential. Jemisin’s world of orogenes, who can manipulate tremendous geological forces, offers interesting parallels to our own relationship with AI — immense power that requires careful control and consideration of consequences.
Looking Forward
As AI tools become more sophisticated, I believe these personal, creative explorations will become increasingly important. They offer a safe space to experiment, learn, and develop an intuitive understanding of AI’s capabilities. For designers especially, this kind of playful experimentation can build the foundation for more serious applications in our professional work.
The artwork I created might not match exactly what Jemisin envisioned when writing her masterpiece, but that’s not really the point. These images represent my personal interpretation of her world, brought to life through a fascinating new medium that sits at the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence.
For designers and creatives looking to understand AI better, I encourage you to find your own “selfish” project. Whether it’s visualizing characters from your favorite book, generating landscapes from your dreams, or any other creative endeavor that excites you — the key is to engage with AI tools in a way that feels personally meaningful.
After all, sometimes the best way to learn isn’t through formal study, but through play, passion, and a touch of magic.
