For this campaign by Bayer, we had had to create a gallery of living paintings, each one featuring a woman as the central figure, spanning different styles and art movements. The challenge was to make each frame feel like a real work of art while working with a tech- and AI-driven process.
Credits
Client
Bayer
agency
Lola MullenLowe
director
La Niña
production company
Smile
post-production
MCNULTY
Generating classic art from scratch
Our process began by mapping a palette of familiar art movements such as Art Nouveau, American Impressionism, Realism and Neoclassicism, and then running hundreds of AI iterations, stitching them together, until each frame captured the exact pose, tone and character the script demanded. From there, every painting was hand-finessed in Photoshop, animated with video-generation models and polished in post. For the integration, we rendered each painting in 3D, matching the lighting and texture of the live-action shots.
Avoiding the "AI-look"
We started by studying references from painters in the public domain who were masters of their craft. Referencing classic art helped us refine the prompts and avoid the over-sharpened textures and plasticky look that often give AI generations away. We were also careful to fix warped eyes and drifting hands, and to color balance each painting so it felt real and aged. This is one of our core beliefs: the viewer shouldn’t notice AI was used at all, as this allows the narrative to flow without visual distractions.
