nightmare friends — series 1

i want to build a physical product based on a 10,000 image generative art project built with HashlipsArtEngine. i had originally created it years ago for an nft project that never took off. it was called nightmare friends. there was an entire lore and roadmap i’ll have to dig up, but i never launched it. it was a weird ass project that i fell in love with, but i wasn’t sure if anyone else would f-– with it. especially since it was an era where i was heavily inspired by snes portrait pixel art. i mean how insufferably niche is that? so, then i thought, “what if i turned this into a plushie, toy, keychain…?”

on the one hand, ai has allowed me to inject jet fuel into this project that had stalled me for a while. it’s also based on my artwork and creativity… but where is the line if i use gemini to turn my art into some type of 3d model? here’s the original:

and the cover is what it made. i was able to do this with 6-7 others. the other cool thing that carried over from my generative project was the rarity tables. so if you buy one, i can tell you how rare each attribute is (eyes, head piece, mouth, neck piece, etc) - making it a bona fide collectible. i think this is the middle ground where one’s personal creativity can be supported by ai. anyway, this isn’t an ai post. i’m sure i’ll have a lot of those later. but i am happy that i might have one of these keychains in my hand in the next few months.

-joe