Cockpunch AI Art Competition

Overview

I recently bought an NFT from Tim Ferriss' new project, The Legend of CØCKPUNCH. On Kevin Rose's Proof podcast, he describes the project as "emergent long fiction" (ELF), with a complex backstory of characters, maps, artwork, and it's very own CØCKPUNCH podcast.

Following the NFT mint, Tim decided to run an A.I. art competition to see who could come up with the best AI-generated artwork related to the project. I've been doing a ton of experimenting recently with various A.I. image generation models such as Dall-E and Stable Diffusion and figured I'd give it a shot.

Since I had an entire weekend to submit my artwork, I figured I would use this as an opportunity to try out the mind-blowing new Midjourney A.I. model. Every piece of artwork I've seen come out of this A.I. has looked incredible, so I've been wanting to try it out.

Here's what I came up with!

Contest Details →

tim.blog

My Art Creation Process

I used my own NFT, CØCKPUNCH #2017, as the starting point for my artwork.

First, I went the cinematic route and leaned on Midjourney's badass model to do most of the work.

Ironically, I went to Coastal Carolina University, and this came out looking a lot like our mascot, the Chanticleer from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales...

Prompt:

Rooster warrior with brown feathers, blue mohawk, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, medievilpunk --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

I quickly learned that Midjourney has no clue what a "boomerang" is.

No matter what I tried, it typically transformed it into a sword (likely because I kept referring to it as a "rooster samurai warrior" 😂)

Prompt:

Medievalpunk brown rooster warrior holding an Australian boomerang weapon, blue mohawk, big eyes, wide angle, full body, drone footage, 4k, photo realistic, high detail, high definition, unreal engine 5, 4k, cinematic lighting, 3d shading --v 4

I eventually decided to instead explicitly tell it "--no sword"...

Prompt:

Brown rooster warrior with a blue mohawk, brown leather boxing gloves, blue lightning aura, full shot, full body, infinite-landscape drone view, gritty, dark, cinematic lighting, forest, punk, unreal engine 5, 4k, 3d shading --no sword --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

After seeing other submissions on Twitter, I figured I'd try to think outside the box to differentiate myself a little.

I tried a ton of different things and liked this "alternative cyberpunk" look the most.

Not quite a rooster but has a live-action adaptation feel...

Prompt:

https://s.mj.run/1u7vOdXn89k cyberpunk warrior, blue mohawk, holding a boomerang, silver metal beak as a mouth,
    dressed as a samurai, highly detailed photograph, cinematic, 8k --v 4 --ar 2:3 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

Then I figured I'd move away from the serious "cinematic" look and try some different styles.

I loved how this little aloy sticker came out...

(I added the shadow and background in Photoshop after)

Prompt:

brown rooster warrior as a flat cartoon aloy sticker, bright blue head feathers, big eyes, 4k, high definition,
    extra detail, childbook illustration --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

Followed by some very simple Photoshop work to add a more vibrant background color and a dropshadow to make it stand-out

Finally, I figured I'd think way outside the box and abandon the character altogether.

These next few are miniature models of what Varlata might look like.

A colosseum for punching cocks...

Prompt:

miniature gladiator colosseum in a dark wooded forest, wide angle, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, infinite drone camera, intricate design, medievilpunk --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

A cock village nestled in the woods...

Prompt:

miniature roman city set in a dark wooded forest, rooster warrior village, wide angle, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, intricate design, medievilpunk --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

A cock village along the coast...

Prompt:

miniature italian city set along a coast, rooster warrior village, wide angle, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, intricate design, medievilpunk --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

Cock figurines punching each other...

Prompt:

miniature rooster fighting colosseum set in a dark wooded forest, rooster warrior boxing ring, wide angle, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, intricate design, medievilpunk --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

Last but not least, I tried to imagine what two giant cocks would look like going head-to-head in a giant colosseum...

Prompt:

Two giant rooster warriors boxing each other in a colosseum with a large crowd watching, wide angle, cinematic view, 4k, high definition, intricate design, gladiator movies style --ar 3:2 --v 4 - Upscaled by @schoon (fast)

Recording of initial experiments...

I had recorded my entire night (almost 6 hours) but unfortunately that file timed out and failed to save.