The realism of this AI action figure trend is scarily impressive

Have you ever wondered what you'd look like as an action figure? No? Me neither, but in case you're curious now, this latest AI trend has just the answer. With the mystical power of good ol' AI, people are transforming themselves into dinky collectable figurines complete with micro accessories, and the results are surprisingly good.

While AI tools can be used for productivity, the allure of creating silly pictures with AI image generators seems to be far more appealing to the internet. Each week there seems to be a new AI image trend that proves to me that AI can still be fun, and not just an existential crisis-inducing overlord.

The process is fairly straightforward – simply upload a picture of yourself to ChatGPT and ask it to create a photorealistic image of an action figure. Depending on what style you'd like to achieve it's worth experimenting with prompts to achieve the look you're after (@cosmosKING_ has a detailed prompt to use if you're stuck for inspiration).

Over on X, people flooded to share their unique creations – for some, it was even an excuse for a little cheeky self-promo. Naturally, some folks got creative, making custom figurines for public personalities (my personal favourite has to be a custom figure of memeified JD Vance). To take things a step further, some people turned the stills into video, giving them an extra layer of realism – the AI-generated Mark S. figurine below could pass as the real thing.

For more AI trends, take a look at the disturbingly hilarious 'pet to person' AI trend or check out what artists think of the controversial AI Studio Ghibli trend.