Exploring Open Editions with Midjourney and Zora

Today I created an Open Edition using Midjourney and minted on Zora

I signed up for the basic tier Midjourney subscription - $10 per month, allowing me to use 3.3 hours of GPU generation per month. I then hopped into the Midjourney discord and used the newbies channel to generate an output with a prompt:

2024 arriving, walking in through a door and kicking the door down, creating dust and explosions in the process

All of this took about 10 minutes to do, and I had a set of 4 images to choose from.

I then chose to upscale image 2 (by selecting U2), then asking for variants on the upscaled version until I received an image I wanted to use.

All of this took about 20 minutes. My subscription plan allows for stealth mode generations via direct messages, which is something I will for sure use in the future. I was quite nervous at the idea of generating images in the public channel! Plus, it was difficult to track my generation as the feed was full of all the public generated images.

Once I had generated an image I liked, I created several compressed variants for the collection thumbnail using compresspng and generated one upscaled (4x) version for the main collection image. I then saved them, and moved to the Zora create flow.

I am pretty excited by both the Base and Zora chains. They offer really affordable contract deployment gas fees. I like that they are bridge-based too, and both chains offer simple bridging options. Zora have built the bridging into their website. It's straightforward to use, understand and access.

The next step is actually adding the Zora network to your wallet. Again, Zora has this covered. I always advise to double check every on-chain action you make even if you are using a throwaway or hot wallet. There is a support article here about how to add the Zora RPC to your wallet client. In a few clicks, I was up and running and had the Zora network on my wallet client. Next step - minting. Zora has a '+' on their website, which is used for creating on the Zora platform. It takes you straight to the create page.

I think this page is designed really well. As a user, I was provided only with the information needed to mint a token. In a few clicks and keyboard taps, I had created my collection, set the price, and uploaded my imagination. The choice of words here is interesting too, making the creation process a bit more personable and exciting. Adding the mint duration up front is thoughtful as well, and provides a good amount of optionality for the mint duration of the collection.

There are a few advanced options as well. I didn't use these, but can see how they would be helpful in the future. When I release major art projects I like to use wallet splits so I can donate primary revenue to relevant / important causes and charities.

I filled out all of the fields required for my mint, and hit create. Zora have their own chain explorer which is great. The deployment cost for this new collection was 0.00004539 ETH. Reasonable! Here's the deploy transaction and here is the token contract

Zora have made an accessible, fun-to-use token deployment flow.

Using Midjourney and Zora, I was able to create a fun open edition mint for the start of the New Year in about 1 hour, and not pay an exorbitant amount of ETH to deploy. This was a great exercise, and something I may use in the future.

The AI art landscape is exciting. The boundaries of computed imagination are being pushed every day. Artists are developing their own styles, using computers as a tool for doing so. Computers are becoming adept at creating imagined works by using words and sentences from humans. All of this combines to create fun, accessible opportunities for artists to share computed art with the world.

It feels like AI generated imagery is emerging from a previously technologically heavy concept to an accessible art medium that everybody can enjoy. This compliments how far web3 has come in the last few years. Both Midjourney and Zora are demonstrating how technology can be accessible and usable by people who have little-to-no technical experience in order to share messages with the world by providing understandable on-ramps without an over saturation of information.

Thanks for reading!