{"id":650,"date":"2025-04-22T00:51:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T04:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnzhu.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2025-05-28T05:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T05:28:09","slug":"lights-camera-action-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnzhu.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/22\/lights-camera-action-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights, Camera, Action Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Internet has been overflowing with people\u2019s ChatGPT-generated action figures of themselves lately. I didn\u2019t have any strong inclination to make one of myself, but the viral moment for this particular AI capability gave me ideas for something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use case<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m always in need of images to accompany my Chinese Lore Podcast<\/a> episodes. It can be hit or miss trying to find relevant, high-quality, and copyright-compliant images for the subject matter. I\u2019ve been experimenting with using ChatGPT to help fill this void. As I previously chronicled<\/a>, however, using generative AI to create the right image can be a bit of a struggle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried this with the first 10 episodes of my Journey to the West podcast series<\/a>. The ChatGPT-generated images summarizing each episode often made significant mistakes in interpreting and visualizing characters and scenes. For instance, on a couple occasions, it forgot that Sun Wukong, one of the main characters, was a monkey and illustrated him as a human-like figure. In short, if my goal was to get images that represented the story with reasonable accuracy, ChatGPT illustrations weren\u2019t the way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon discovering ChatGPT\u2019s ability to make realistic images of action figures, I did a lot of experimentation over several days, trying to generate realistic renderings of characters from Journey to the West<\/em> as a way to assess the feasibility of this approach for creating usable art for my podcast. Here\u2019s a look at my process, the outcomes, and some takeaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A typical starter prompt from my experiments went something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the attached image, create a realistic action figure of [character name]. Give him [a list of accessories]. Put him against a plain background. In the back, add the title [character name].<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For reference images, I generally used screenshots from the 1986 Chinese TV series<\/a> based on the novel. For billions of Chinese and other Asians of my generation, this was THE canonical TV adaptation of Journey to the West<\/em>, and its depictions of the characters have indelibly shaped the mainstream conception of what they should look like and how they should act (essentially, think Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some experiments with creating standalone figures, I took the experiment up another level. I pasted in scripts of my podcast episodes and asked ChatGPT to create an image of a scene from the episode, using realistic action figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n