Image: “Mr. Honeybadger” by Severin Sorensen, using Midjourney, 5/16/23.

First prompt: The Honeybadger.

As you can see, Midjourney’s AI was creative and produced an attractive Elizabethan-styled “Mr. Honeybadger” portrait. Very cool indeed. But was not the honeybadger I had envisioned. AI had produced an attractive-looking character for a tv sitcom or children’s show, but not an actual photo version of the animal. When this happens, its best to stop, and pivot and revise your prompt. As I illustrate below.

Second prompt: a fierce honeybadger with an attitude that says, ‘honeybadger don’t care’ as it battles all manner of beasts, snakes, porcupines, and other animals. The honey badger is a fierce and tireless champion. The setting is a sub-African desert. 8k, cinematic. –ar 16:9

This was getting closer, still the creatures look like they could be on set for a Disney or Pixar animated film. I was looking for something more realistic. So it was necessary to pivot again. This time I provided up to four references for what a honeybadger looks like and its fierceness in the wild.

Prompt: Honeybadger king of the African desert is most fearless animal and can fight off much larger predators like lions and hyenas; style a photo-realistic scene using a honeybadger blended from these examples: [Enter link for 4 images]

The honeybadger is a less frequently drawn or referenced character, and it took several iterations to arrive at the image features and context desired. Here is a step-by-step process of how this image was created.

This yielded results of a honey badger more like I had imagined when I first started this project. Here is the result.

Image: “The Honeybadger: King of the African Desert,” by Severin Sorensen, using MidJourney, 5/16/23.