Why product mockups are so important

There are products on Zazzle with pretty mockups created by Zazzle. But there are also products which have no mockup image. One of these products are aprons. 

When I created the design for the apron AI did not yet exist, and there was only a very complicated way to create mockups using photoshop. I must admit that I had a look into that and decided it would take too much time to get anywhere near creating something reasonable.

However, with AI today, there are two ways to create nice mockups. 

• Use Dynamic mockups
• Use Chatgpt

Mockups make your product interesting for customers. Especially on such a large platform like Zazzle it is important to get the attention of potential customers, and you can do this by creating interesting mockups.

This will force you to think about your designs and your possible customers: Will gardening people love to wear this apron? 

Purple Pansy Flower Garden Apron
by ullahennig

Or will someone who obviously loves to have plants and flowers at their home love to wear it?

By the way, the upper mockup was created with Dynamic Mockups, and the one on the left with Chatgpt.

Venetian Mask - Two images, one prompt

Both images have been created with the same prompt and two different AI Art generators. The image on the left was created with the help of Nightcafe Studio, and the image on the right was created by using Deep Dream Generator. As you can see there's quite a bit of a difference between them. 

I am not sure which of the two is my favorite - there's something interesting in both of them: The serious facial expression and the way the feathers frame the face in the left image; the richly decorated mask and the smile on the face in the right image. 

Another piece of abstract art

I love trying out color combinations, and I love to experiment with adding markers to my acrylic ink paintings. In this case I used a dark blue alcohol marker for the background. 

In addition to that I tried something new: A few weeks ago I bought some Molotow Sketchers for the first time. These are water based markers. I hadn't touched them yet and decided to try applying them on some spots over the acrylic ink. It worked. 

The whole process of painting was very satisfying, relaxing and joyful. It always takes a bit of preparation - getting my table covered with newspapers, fetching the paints, the water container and the brushes - and it takes a bit of time to put everything away afterwards, but it is definitely worth it!

Using Prompt Silo

Pheeds Prompt Silo has a Prompt Builder Interface which allows you to generate highly detailed prompts by selecting specific variables from drop-down categories (e.g., subjects, artist styles, lighting, camera angles, and writing tones).

I used it to create the following prompt: 

zebras drinking water baroque chiaroscuro art

First I tried Meta AI but obviously it had some difficulties with rendering zebras and produced some very strange results.Then I used this prompt with ChatGPT and got the image. which you can see on the left side.

I then went to Leonardo AI, inserted the prompt above and Leonardo automatically changed the prompt to:

A dramatic scene of zebras with distinctive black and white stripes gathered around a serene water source, rendered in the style of Baroque art with intense chiaroscuro contrasting light and dark, the zebras' bodies illuminated by a soft, golden glow, while the surrounding environment is shrouded in deep shadows, with meticulous attention to detail and texture, the overall mood is one of tranquil elegance, inviting the viewer to step into the heart of the African savannah at dusk, with the warm colors of the setting sun reflecting off the water's edge, and the zebras' gentle movements suggesting a sense of peaceful coexistence with nature.

Unfortunately the result was not very satisfying, as you can see here:

Looking close at the zebras you will notice that something is wrong with the way they stand together. Nice landscape, nice lighting, but wrong animal bodies.

Of course I could have tried out other AI Art Generators, but I didn't feel like it. I simply haven't got the time to do it just now.

But I did learn something:

1. Prompt Silo can be a useful starting point.
2. It is fun to create with AI, but you have to check the outcome. If you have the time, try the same prompt with different AI Art creators. 

Having fun with color mixing on the paper

One way to mix acrylic inks is to mix two colors on your palette. Another way is to use a semi opaque color like yellow to put it on top of a dried darker color. Here I used yellow on burgundy red in order to create various hues of orange. I painted the background with a very dark blue alcoholmarker. I varied the direction of the strokes of the marker and this produced some kind of a texture. 
 

How to create Mockups for my Zazzle store with Dynamic Mockups

 

Zazzle offers some mockup images for certain products, but not for every product. If you want to present your Iphone case design, for example, you better look somewhere else for a nice mockup. 

Now there is a platform called placeit which offers free phone case mockups, but you don't want your Iphone design mockup look like many others, do you?

Well, I found a solution for this. There is a platform called "Dynamic mockups". There are several ways to create a product mockup, but I use it the following way:

1. I upload the product in question to the platform.
2. I click on the "scene" button. A lot of scenes are offered now, I tried some of them but wasn't very pleased with the result. So I go to the bottom of this category. There you can insert your own scene prompt.
3. Now you can just insert a description of your scenery, or you can ask AI for it, copy the text you get and insert it. 
4. As a free user you have three images daily. Once it happened to me that I wasn't satisfied with the three results at all and had to try the day after. 
5. In case you are satisfied with the result you can download the image and upload it to Zazzle. 

Vintage Red Rose Watercolor I Phone case
by ullahennig

Acrylic inks and alcohol markers

There are several ways I have been combining acrylic inks and alcohol markers:

1. I have been using a black marker for painting the background. 
   
   
2. While painting with acrylic inks I left several spots blank and filled up the blank space with a marker when the acrylic ink had dried. In this painting I used markers in several shades of green and a yellow marker.
   
   
3. I found out that markers go very nicely over dried acrylic inks. In the painting you can see several spots of orange - here I went over washed out red acrylic ink with a yellow marker.