The AI Marketer's Playbook

19 | Harnessing AI for Consistent Visual Storytelling with Diana Zdybel

• Audrey Chia, Diana Zdybel • Season 1 • Episode 19

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In this episode of The AI Marketers Playbook, host Audrey Chia dives into the intersection of creativity and AI with Diana Zdybel, co-founder of Neolemon. Diana shares how her background in education and innovation inspired her to bootstrap Neolemon into a six-figure success, empowering creatives to adopt AI tools. Discover insights into consistent character design, visual storytelling, and the rapid evolution of tools like MidJourney. Plus, Diana unveils Neolemon’s latest app - consistentcharacter.ai for creating characters, loved by illustrators, educators, and marketers alike.  

Hear why AI is a collaborator, not a competitor, and how to supercharge your creative workflows.

Connect with Diana here: https://linktr.ee/neolemon 

Join my weekly Newsletter: https://lp.closewithcopy.co/welcome

Speaker:

Hello and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI marketing strategies in your business. I'm Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me someone really special, Diana Zibel, the co founder of Neolemon. Now, Diana is an amazing visionary leader at the intersection of AI and my favorite thing, creativity. Thank you for being here with us, Diana. Thank you so much for inviting me. Awesome. I would love to know a bit more of your background and how you got into the whole world of AI.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a complex question for me to explain just in a few seconds. Um, I will try to be short. So right now I am building my startup, which is called Neolemon. And together with my co founder, we started just two years ago. And within two years, we were constantly working on answering the question, how we can make our process, creative process, more efficient. And how we can teach others to adopt AI tools in their creative process. And since then we have bootstrapped our business to six figures, just in two person team. we have fabulous community. I love my job and I'm happy to share my tips for designers and as well, non designers.

Speaker:

That is super cool, and congrats on that huge milestone. It takes a lot of work to get a startup up and running, and I know how much effort you guys must have put in. I'm also curious to know, right, was your background, a designer? Were you in the creative space? And then how do you start, you know, thinking about even using AI in your processes?

Speaker 2:

I actually come from educational space. I was previously working, as a manager in, school. later I became a headmaster of that school. and after this, I was working in language company in innovation department and I was working on training materials and talent management as well as, task coordination. And when we wanted to go through the change process, because there was some changes in the company, we were growing and scaling at a very fast pace. I understood how hard it is to deliver training materials, which are, up to date, as well how to get people motivated to go through this learning journey together with us. And how to manage the change process in the company overall. And my expectations, VS reality was very huge, which, at the end, motivated me to, dive into my own startup and help more motivated founders and creatives to get that change faster and go through this transformation with accountability and help that they needed. And

Speaker:

I'm curious, right, because you talk about a lot about change, right? But how did AI actually come into, you know, the equation?

Speaker 2:

I was actually providing, coaching sessions and I was looking, for more tools that I can teach or use, during my coaching sessions. for creativity that can support growth mindset. And my lectures, I wanted to make them super engaging. And this is how I came across AI tools, because I started experimenting with this to implement that into my, lessons at the same time. My co founder, he is a hyper realistic artist and he was just curious about the new tools which are emerging and what is possible in that space. And we were so curious to learn more, to try it out, to see what is possible. And actually we just started. started sharing whatever we have discovered back then, and a lot of earlier doctors were finding that information useful. this is how our journey started. I

Speaker:

think one thing that stood out to me about what you said is the idea of curiosity, that you guys didn't just stop at, you know, Trying one thing, but because you were trying so many different tools and processes, you also have that wealth of knowledge that you probably could then share with other people. And how did you actually meet your, your co founders? I, it seems like your co founder has a background in design, right?

Speaker 2:

It he does have a background in design, but as well, he was working as a engineer in Procter and Gamble. So he's very focused on the process, scalability and as well, workflows and, we have actually met, during the COVID, it was during the travel and it was completely not work related. but I was, very fascinated by his skills of, drawing and how hyper realistically he can do so, and, I believe that from my side, I was so, enthusiastic about teaching and making those, learning materials that it's just between one of the conversations about the art and design, we are moving Mostly curious about that. it just sparked, so we decided to try it out and, try to build our own business.

Speaker:

Wow, that is super cool to hear. And I think what's beautiful about this process is people always think that, you know, you have to be a certain, you have to have certain skill sets to leverage AI. But in your case, you guys bring so many different skill sets that all stack on top of each other, yet creating something new in a space that could be different for you, which I think is really interesting. So who are the kinds of people you have been working with at NeoLemon and, you know. What have you observed, you know, in the past few years of coaching and training?

Speaker 2:

Wonderful question. we, provide in trainings for creative directors, and this is still our, main customer and audience as well as creative agencies. And we see that right now, what I have observed after so long that, there is such a challenge for founders and, Non designers, animators, illustrators, or people who work in creative industry just to stay up to date and not always, their company supports, the learning, at such pace as AI tools are developing. so we are getting requests constantly of new form of training. So coaching or the tool, or some kind of solution. For example, specific GPT that can help them to make their process more efficient. So right now to answer your question, I would probably say creative directors, founders of the studios, and as well, illustrators, and non designers who want to tell their stories by using AI that can amplify their skills.

Speaker:

Definitely. And I think there is still a bit of a gap in the market, right? With people who know how to use AI super effectively, and then people who are trying to use AI, but just not maximizing it. And then there's still, I think, a camp of people who are very resistant to using AI. from your experience so far, how have people, you know, in your region or your clients been Receptive to it or not, because in Asia, for example, I do know that it has taken at agencies a bit of time to make that pivot because when AI first launched, they saw it as a potential threat. and the business model You know, where you're basing your creative based on time has to then change because now AI is in the picture, right? So I'm so curious to know, like, on your end, what are some observations you've made? Are people relatively open to it? Have they changed their perception on the use

Speaker 2:

of

Speaker:

AI?

Speaker 2:

It's a very interesting question. I, do connect with what you're sharing from your experience. Nevertheless, our audience is super motivated and we are blessed with that. I think that because we are providing our trainings online, this is how people are finding us and they already have that curiosity, to learn the latest tools and the workloads to amplify their work. They do come with different, level of skill set, so for example, if, this is, the, one of our students is, psychologist, and she wanted to illustrate a book to, educate parents to go through the challenges in case their, kid has disabilities, and she was able to do this without any drawing skills or design background by using AI, And still bringing her expertise from, her experience and knowledge and life, learnings. at the same time, we have creative directors who are working on a very high level clients and professionally using AI completely in different workflows. And. What is common for both of them is that growth mindset and, they do want to go through this adoption process and have this transformation. So, from my end, it's very high motivation and, maybe it's just I'm lucky with this. But yeah, I do see that in other countries, AI adoption, goes slower. And I

Speaker:

also think it's a timing thing. I feel like at least from what I've seen, last year, people will still on the, on the fence. But this year, I think a lot more companies are realizing the AI is here to stay. And because they, they are starting to see the shift, even in their industries and they realize that they have to pick up that skill sets. So maybe like one insight that I've noticed is clients. themselves are learning how to leverage AI so they no longer have the same level of dependency as before for an external agency to work on their projects. So people are being more equipped with the skill sets to create. Do you feel like this is also something you have observed?

Speaker 2:

Yes, truly, and for example, what, what just I right now remember it is that we are attending web summit. This is one of the biggest technological conferences that are provided here in Europe. And, if the last year it was all about AI, but there was so many objections and. Like internal process from the creative sides to adopt those tools, and go through this change right now. The main motto was AI is here to stay. So adopt faster. And we see the new startups which are emerging and they are bringing such amazing solutions, very niche, very specific for specific, task for specific workload, for specific audience for that region, for this country. It's amazing. And I do see that the transformation is going as fast, even if we don't have clear guidance in terms of ethical issues or the law, present at the moment. And in each country, it will be a different situation. still, the tools are developing and it is better to be informed and positioned towards using those tools in the future. I think

Speaker:

the one thing you said is like the speed of evolution, right? Even for on a, on a copy basis, right? ChatGPT has improved so much in just one short year. And it's insane because on the copy's front. Initially, when I first started, started using ChatGPT, I told myself, you know, it will never fully replace a human writer. But at this stage, I can confidently say that it has gotten to such a high level of proficiency that it can probably replace a human writer. Your junior or even mid weight writers, if they're not bringing a lot of insightful content to the table. how has it been like on the design, on the visual point of view, like has it also evolved as dramatically?

Speaker 2:

It has evolved as dramatically, and from my perspective, seeing that evolution at such pace is, is just crazy. And this is what motivates right now. Creatives to get on board faster because they see the photorealistic results, which tools like me journey, for example, can deliver. A lot of people cannot recognize if this content is AI generated or the real photography. I do think that people are afraid of losing their job because of AI, because there is such risk. Nevertheless, if you have, if you will be using AI as a collaborator and amplify your skills, which are not your main expertise, you will become much stronger. So for example, copywriting is not my expertise, and I do use chat GPT and other tools to make my copywriting better. And I think I have even learned something to, to, get my content more engaging and at the same time, using AI for design, for example, can teach you new type of work if you are an expert in, Cinematic photo shoot, you can bring your expertise and use your knowledge as a keywords to create this kind of design. But if you are not working in that space, you will learn a lot. You will learn about composition, about camera angles, about the lightning. And there are a lot of knowledge which you will get from working with those tools as well. not always you should think about them as a threat to your process or to your traditional workflow.

Speaker:

And I think actually, as we move forward, we'll see a lot more generalists. That is my prediction. I think that people will start realizing that it's not enough to just know one skill set really well. I think even if you do, it's not enough. It's important to leverage AI for that one skill set, but I have a feeling that as we progress into the next year, I think we will see people diversifying their skill sets and instead of being like, you know, just a copywriter or just a designer, you would probably be a hybrid creative, super powered by AI as your assistant, you know, to get a lot of work done faster, but also still. being able to bring the human touch. I would love to talk a bit more about adding the human touch to it. I think for many people who are not creatives, right? they might assume that AI is able to just recreate something, and, you know, be as, as, as they imagine, but I strongly believe that that creativity and that human element is still very important in the process. What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2:

It's definitely super important. You need to think of AI as your collaborator, but not let it take all the process and lead it. So for example, in terms of the concepting, you can come up with the concept, but then push the boundaries and introduce new ideas and also filter what kind of ideas you think that is the most relevant for your client or your audience. And if you are creating a design and you see AI generated image, it will definitely not be like you have envisioned. And it takes quite a learning curve to learn how to get that control level with AI image generation. the results will be good if you're not looking for control, but I know that creators are definitely not happy with this.

Speaker:

I think people underestimate how much skill you need to effectively use AI for design. Like. There are so many times when somebody say, isn't it just very easy to prompt for something? If you don't have a vision, it's very easy to prompt for something. But if you are a creative or if you have someone, you're someone with that vision, right? Then you realize how hard it is for you to get AI to recreate that exact vision you have. without the necessary skillsets. And for example, for someone who attends, you know, one of your courses, right? What types of things do you cover?

Speaker 2:

Great question. We start with AI foundations to explain how the models work and what kind of capabilities AI is presenting right now, as well as what are the limitations. to set the expectations accordingly. then we are diving into, AI tools that are working with the sketch, because we do have a lot of creatives that are sketching or want to take the image reference and then Amplify to present it as a pitch for their clients or to make marketing materials or In the ideation stage when they have an idea, they want to just visualize this we are hugely covering mid journey and prompting concepting process storyboarding process And as well covering consistent character creation, which has been the most popular topic so far You And later we are diving into animation with AI, we focus totally on everything what can be visual and this is our passion and we are happy to share our tips and what we have discovered and what kind of workflows have worked for us. And that can make other creatives process more efficient and save them a lot of time. Because what you can definitely do with AI is that you can 10x your creative process, save time, become more efficient, and bring that creativity level to completely, different reality.

Speaker:

We've seen so much productivity gains after. AI was being introduced into my life. Like I say, it's my best friend because I use it in so many parts of the creative process, right? From your research and ideation, all the way to messaging and concepts, then all the way to your final execution. If you know how to use it effectively. That is, you will see a lot of like, time savings and like what you said, being more efficient, being able to produce like, better work even, those are things that you can definitely expect with AI. And I know you talked a bit about, you know, consistent characters, right? I know it's a little bit, One of the key pain points for many creatives trying to get AI to be consistent. So tell us a bit more about what you guys have been doing with that consistent character function and how you've been helping folks to do so.

Speaker 2:

That had been a challenging topic since, uh, 2022. Actually, a lot of creatives were looking into AI because they wanted to create storyboards and tell their stories and brainstorm and showcase this in the pitch or in the marketing materials. And since then, the AI tools have developed a lot. And recently, we have seen how, tools have developed. Such players like Midjourney introduce the features, which will help you achieve consistency. In case in the audience, we have early adopters. They know that I'm talking about Midjourney's ref command, by amplifying, which you can create, lookalike characters, from my perspective, they will be more like a twins. I do have twins brothers. So I know what I'm talking about, then the same character. Nevertheless, for many, it's still a super huge challenge, and depending on the character, it can be done with Midjourney, or even not accomplished, because Midjourney is working better with photorealistic results. If you're a gaming studio, or you're creating a mascot, or you want to tell a, story and create a children's book, that would not be the results that you're looking for. And that motivated us to experiment and when the chat GPT store had been launched, we have created consistent character GPT which so far over half a million users have tried. And there are so many YouTube videos about this different creatives are sharing their best trips, how to use that. But limitations of, uh, ChatGPT, were not, giving us more flexibility to present more features for our users, and that motivated us to dive more into this topic, learn more, experiment more, and come up with a new solution.

Speaker:

Firstly, I just want to say that I did not load it. You were the co founder of Consistent Character GPT because I have heard so many creators talking about it. But it's so cool to be able to speak to you the person who actually conceptualized it all so that's amazing and secondly, I know then you probably went into like tinkering around and building something even better, right? So tell us more about that consistent character endeavor that you're working on. Is it a startup? Where are you guys at in that journey? We have

Speaker 2:

just, launched, it's a bit of a launch and we are right now focusing super heavily on, making the process as efficient as it's possible. We want to deliver consistency, control, and convenience. For our users and, many creatives are reaching out, telling how this is helping them right now. just at night at 2 a. m. I have had an email from one of our users who is an actual. illustrator and she's creating children's book. And now she tells how convenient it is for her to use our tool. And those stories are super amazing and studios are reaching out. They are creating animations. everyone has their own use and different features that they like about our startup. This is a web application and everyone right now can have access to this. And, I think that in future we will be sharing more, as it has just recently launched. We are being quite, quiet on that end, not to have, a lot of workflow and at the same time to be committed and deliver each client a very good experience and service. So in case you are receiving. An email at night with the demo, how to do a specific character design. It's me answering that.

Speaker:

That is dedication right there. And I think it's really amazing that you're spending the time to talk to your clients, right. And understand their pain points. While building the product and making sure this platform works great for everyone. And I think that really showcases your passion and dedication to building it out, which is amazing. Now, I would also love to know if you could perhaps share a demo with us, on, you know, maybe how you create characters consistently, or, you know, how you create this and actually start leveraging some of your tips in their workflows. That would be wonderful. Just

Speaker 2:

let me share my screen.

Speaker:

I'm happy to showcase. Okay, so for those of you who are listening, online, Diana will walk you guys through what we are seeing on screen. She has prepared a couple of slides and we are excited to dive right in.

Speaker 2:

So, first of all, I wanted to mention that in case you don't know, there is a fun fact. The human brain processes visual information 60, 000 times faster than the text. And this is what I love about AI visual storytelling, because having an image, can take the attention immediately. And this is why, if we are a living in such noisy place right now with so much information. The visual part is super important, especially it's important in case you want to tell a story and to tell a story you need to have the same character in different actions with different emotions, expressions, going through some process. This is what is called consistency to get the same character. that is going through this journey and consistency with AI. Right. is super challenging. Right now, the best thing that you can do, is to use mid journey srf command in case you're looking for photorealistic results. Nevertheless, this solution is not working the same for each character. It does not work the best for cartoon style characters and many other styles. And a lot of, illustrators, studios and creators, they are looking for better, more simple solutions and they are also don't know how to prompt well in Midjourney to get such results. There is another tip to use a prompt called Character Sheet to get your character in different kind of angles. Then you would take the background out. Cat, cut each character position and separately create a background and overlap this to create a story. But in case you're watching this and you can see the slide, you will see the results that creatives are actually looking for when you have the same character from different angles. And the characters that you are actually can get with AI tools right now. So this is really a big challenge. And there is a lot of hype going on this. Nevertheless, it's, not having the same results as we are looking for, and it is very problematic for people who don't know how to prompt and who are not using MeJourney at all. That brought us to building consistent character GPT. and, so far as I have shared, a lot of creatives have used this, and you can find their stories and their demos and step by step guides shared on the YouTube. They are creating amazing stories. We have learned from their experience. We have, heard their amazing transformation, and that motivated us to dive more into consistency topic as it is, and create a solution which is user friendly. And so we decided to build consistent character AI and give our users convenience of using a tool and get the quality results without complex prompting, and as well control over their expressions when they are creating their character, and overall their user experience should be fun and they should feel more creative while doing so than challenged. And here is the example of the results that you can get in our application. We have six styles, photorealistic cartoon, Pixar, claymation, and, anime and so forward. So, in case you're looking for a specific style, I think that we have you covered. in our application, what you can do is that you can start with creating a character, then you can change the action, you can also play with different kind of backgrounds, and you will be able to change expression. And, Best user, use case for this is when you're creating a book or you're creating materials for the lessons or for the presentations or your social media content. But we have a lot of educators joining our, community and they are telling that it makes instantly their content more engaging and their lessons more engaging. become more fun that way. And here I have a very short video, on how you can start creating your characters in our application. You start by accessing the character turbo feature. and by describing your character. You can use very simple prompt for this, and you can just describe the subject, which is the character itself, specific details, maybe about the hair or the color of their eyes, and you can also describe their outfit. In the next step, you will choose the style in which you want to create your character, and you can type some expression or action to start with, but actually it's not required for the first step. And we have our character. In case you're watching this, you can see how cute it looks. Now we are ready to experiment, and we will give the description of the character field the same, and we will just try to change expression, and we will Just try to change background as well and see how the model will work with the consistency. And so forward we will create different kind of images to tell our story and bring our characters alive. We can also experiment with different kind of pose or action. Right now in our screen the character was standing first and now he is running. He has happy face or he is reading very focused. A book. And this is how you can create your character super easy and fun. You will have the dashboard as well. So you can come back to the character you have created previously, and you can create more stories about this character and create new poses and new features as well. We can, experiment with different kinds of expressions. For this, we will create the character first and then use expression editor to move the head, the mouth, or the eyes with different kind of settings. And that way create more images of the same character, but with different emotion. This is the super helpful feature to create first and last frame in case you are working with AI animation tools. This is, super tip to go and a lot of our users are actually specifically using, expression editor or to, make new emotion for their existing photo or to animate characters and have a specific control over that motion. And the last but not least, the feature that we have just recently launched is creating, avatar. So in that case, I'm using my favorite hero as a model from Home Alone. And, I have not even, shared a prompt. I just uploaded the image of, that hero and the model created the prompt analyzing the image by itself. And then I uploaded the image as a reference and waited just for one minute or even less and I was having my avatar ready in specific style that I was looking for. Super fun! Right now I'm exploring actually how to use that feature combined with different kind of other tools to animate it or To make some kind of materials. So this is super fun to play with and it works really great. Just in less than one minute, you can create an avatar of yourself in various kinds of styles, which looks like 100 percent you. So. That is what we are building right now. I am happy to invite everyone to go and try it today. In case you would like to get some free credits, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to share and we are super focused on our, user experience and the feedback. So that would be wonderful to hear your story, what you want to create with this. And in case something, is inspiring you and you would like to suggest a new feature, we are also open for this, inviting everyone to try it out. and as well, feel free to connect with me in case you have some questions about creating consistent characters, illustrating your book. Or creating materials for your marketing campaign. I'm happy to help. Can

Speaker:

I just say that was incredible. I am so amazed and impressed at the same time. It's like. Maybe a couple of things, right? The first thing is you just niche down on one use case, which is a beautiful use case. I think a lot of products that I've seen so far, they try to solve 1 million things, but they end up not solving each thing very well. So it just becomes a very generic AI wrapper, the copywriting tool, for example, and you don't actually solve one problem. But in your case, I can tell super clearly that you guys identify a need. And then you beta tested it as a GPT and there was great feedback, which then proved to be a very strong use case with the right product market fit before diving deeper into tweaking it for your specific target audience, with that ideal customer profile in mind. And I can see like a very beautiful progression of that journey, which gets me super excited as well, that

Speaker 2:

is beautiful. Thank you so much, Audrey. It actually was not our strategy at all. We were just very open to listen to our user feedback and to our learners, what they need and what they want. And that is super insightful in case there is some One insight that I want the people who are listening to us today from this podcast is that listen, listen, and you will find the answers your clients, your users, they are sharing the best feedback that possibly can make your product better.

Speaker:

I absolutely loved it and sometimes when you listen then you are able to really create a product that is More like a painkiller than a vitamin right and in this case Because it's such a pain point for so many people. I am sure that You're making it so much easier for many people who are not designers to then be able to create, you know, content in a beautiful way. And I think the second thing that I love is there are so many different use cases for just one product like that, even as someone who is not a designer, I can already see a use case for clients who want to do ads, for example, or who want to create a newsletter or who want to tell a campaign story, but don't have photos of their clients. So there are so many different use cases that I'm sure people can start looking into and it's giving people access to creativity. And being able to, you know, build something new, even without that initial expertise or domain knowledge. And I think I can see that, I, there's so much value in it. And I just want to say huge congrats on launching, launching this business.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you so much. So kind from your side. we are very passionate about building this and helping people learn how they can use AI tools to make their process more efficient and as well how they can tell their stories with AI without having specific prompting, or design background. And I am looking forward to seeing more stories that they will share with us in upcoming months.

Speaker:

So to wrap things up, I would also love for you to share with our listeners, right, what is perhaps one actionable thing they can do to start learning how to integrate AI into their workflows and processes. Wonderful.

Speaker 2:

I would actually recommend to go and check out the Consistent Character GPT because it's available and it's free. And you can start generating images there to tell your story, you will understand how it's working, and you can start using AI to generate images without having this thought that it has to be perfect. Just start and you will see how models are improving and your prompting skills will improve all over the time as well. And in case you're looking for a high quality visuals, generated faster with more user friendly experience. I do invite everyone to try out our app and to reach out to me in case any questions I'm happy to help. And where can people find you? On Linden. Always on Linden, I'm there. and all the links, to the Consistent Character GPT, to our upcoming workshops, to our training, all is possible to find there.

Speaker:

Thank you so much, Diana, again, for your time and for joining us and sharing your insights. It was a pleasure having you on the show and thank you guys for tuning in. Don't forget to hit the bell and subscribe to the AI Marketers Podcast for more actionable marketing insights. We will see you next time. Take care.