Winter Rant

I was thinking about how dinosaurs would look as senators in Ancient Rome. One thing led to another, and I have a gallery of animals (birds! and other creatures!) in different garbs from Ancient Rome.

Here is the prompt template I used: “a/an [animal] wearing ancient robes, in Ancient Rome.“

And then I just iterated through different animals and birds. Some of these are imaginary creatures. Others might not qualify as creatures but are super cute!

The backstory for this set is still developing. For now, simply enjoy different animals, wearing robes, in Ancient Rome …

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While the generations were good overall, a few remarks:

• Bear, Tiger, Gorilla, Cat, and Sparrow: these generations were spot on. I think MJ got the brief exactly right with these, and it really delivered. The images show these birds and animals are senatorial to say the least.
• Teddy Bear: How could I not do this? They look soooo cute!
• Elephant looks less like wearing robes, and more like a Caesar, adorning the finest garb and trinkets the empire has to offer. Very fitting for a king of the jungle. But MJ did take some creative liberties here with the robes — passable, but not quite what I had in mind.
• Giraffe looks like a Catholic Pope (again from Rome, I suppose). But not quite from Ancient Rome.
• Eagle looks like a Roman General. Again, not quite adorning robes, but slaying it those armors. It’s like MJ telling me, “I see what you are looking for, but trust me… this is better.”
• Dog: I was surprised at this one! For all other generations MJ anthropomorphized the birds and animals, expect in the case of “dog”. I suppose it makes sense, since dogs were common in Ancient Rome(?). Not sure — seems like a quirk.
• Dinosaur, Shark, Unicorn: these were the most disappointing sets. The Dinosaur set looks fine, but that second image shows the Dinosaur in a tunic and belt (and there is something else going on with anthropomorphizing Dinosaurs that I am still investigating). The second image from the Shark-set shows what appears to be a bathrobe. The Unicorn generations were mostly fine, except the later two images in that set do not show two horns or no horns.

Like I said, overall a great set, and very impressive. But there is more going on here. Watch this space.

— vijay, gulping some cough syrup