Adam illustrates the Crow Queen — and labels every picture

A book the children asked for

Every morning a crow lands on Adam’s fence, says something that sounds like good morning, and waits for her breakfast. The children in the neighbourhood call her the Crow Queen. Since the episode about her went online, parents have been writing to Adam with the same request: a bedtime book. A real one, with pages and pictures.

Adam has photographs — hundreds of them. The Crow Queen on the fence in frost. On a chimney at sunset. Stealing a peg from a washing line. But a bedtime book needs pictures a camera cannot take: the crow wearing a tiny crown, the crow flying over the old town at night with a lantern, the crow holding a council of sparrows. “I hunt real shots,” Adam told the crow. “I can’t photograph your dreams.” The crow said nothing, which is how she agrees.

A strict rule

Adam decided to try an AI video tool, which generates images and video from a description. He read the price page first, because in his hunting days he had been fooled by small print more than once. No free plan is listed among the individual plans (source, checked 2026-10-04). The Plus plan: $30 per month (Plus, monthly billing) (source, checked 2026-10-04). And: Commercial use is listed as part of the Plus plan (source, checked 2026-10-04). That last line mattered. He was not making a picture for the fridge — he wanted to sell the book.

Before he typed a single prompt, he wrote a rule on a piece of tape and stuck it to his monitor: “Photos are photos. Drawings are drawings. Never mix them up.” In nature photography that rule is everything. A wildlife photo that was secretly generated is a lie about an animal, and Adam had told enough lies about animals in his old life — mostly to himself.

The crown fits

Then he began. He described the Crow Queen exactly as she is — glossy black from beak to tail, head always tilted a little to the left, as if she is about to argue — and asked for a storybook illustration in soft watercolour, with a small golden crown. The first results looked like any crow. The fifth looked like her. Adam laughed so loudly that the real crow on the fence flew off, offended.

Over one weekend he made twelve illustrations: the coronation on the fence, the night flight with a lantern, the council of sparrows, the winter when the Queen shares her bread with a fox. Each one went into the book with a small line underneath: AI illustration. Each real photo went into the back of the book, in a section called “The real Queen”, with the date and place it was taken.

What the children noticed

The first copies went to the neighbours. The children loved the crown. But what they talked about most was the back of the book — the real crow, stealing the real peg. “She is real,” said one boy, holding the page close to his nose. “And the crown is pretend.” That, Adam thought, was exactly the point.

The next morning the Crow Queen came back to the fence. Adam left her an extra piece of cheese. A royalty payment.

I used to shoot animals. Now I shoot frames — and I say which pictures are drawn. Made with AI on the Kailiniai.com platform.

What should Adam try tomorrow?

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