An AI Image Generation Experiment for Horus Heresy: The Isstvan Boxed Set!

Hello readers! Today I wanted to have a brief experimentation with how easy (or not) and how realistic (or not) it is to produce fake images of novel Horus Heresy boxed sets. This is purely an academic experiment and not meant to cause any offence or over-step any copyright claims - it is conducted under "fair use" and is a purely academic investigation. 

Given the recent "leaks" that we have all seen by now about the new boxed set, I was wondering if it were possible to create a novel boxed set that felt "authentic" but was nonetheless completely fake. I used two sources for this: both MidJourney, and ChatGPT. The results are below. 

Of course, I'd be willing to eBay or Facebook them for some 500 dollars each. But they simply don't exist. So how well has the technology done? 

To the trained eye (which is probably you and me, dear readers) they are OBVIOUSLY fake. The second image is worse and comes from MidJourney. It doesn't even have the right logos associated with it. The marine looks okay, but it's not great either. I did like the explosions in the background though. And it is certainly sitting in a car, so that looks good at least! 

The first image is better and comes from ChatGPT. The artwork of the Iron Warriors is poor though. Where are my hazard stripes? And what exactly has happened to the eye lenses? If I could improve on that, it might be better, and maybe I can, but I'm not willing to put in the time and effort here. 

Conclusion. It is easy to generate images that at first glance might look authentic, but to get them passed the trained Horus Heresy eyes is much, much harder. I think with work I could do it. Just. But its not worth the effort. My short conclusion then is that the leaks we have seen are real enough!