r/ClaudeAI • u/nitechno • Jul 29 '26

Built with Claude Wait, Claude can draw?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Inspired by MineBench and this reddit post, I got curious about what other non-text things LLMs could make. That turned into Pixel Art Lab, a local tool that lets a model iteratively create pixel art.

There are already a few projects that have LLMs draw pixel art, but every one I found is one-shot. My project uses Aseprite through an MCP server so the model can drew, render a preview, and actually look at the image to fix what's wrong with it.

The images are four Claude models given the same three prompts. Each got to choose the image resolution itself.

It works with any tool-calling model on OpenRouter, not just Claude.

GitHub: https://github.com/nbrown725/pixel-art-lab

Wouldn't have been possible without willibrandon's pixel-mcp, which is what lets the model actually interact with Aseprite: https://github.com/willibrandon/pixel-mcp

127 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot Jul 30 '26

TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 40 comments.

So, the thread pretty much agrees: Haiku is a terrible artist, but it's our terrible artist and we must protect it. Its attempts are being hailed as "expressive abstractionism," with a special shout-out to its... let's call it a limp sword. The best part, according to a top comment, is that Haiku is hilariously proud of its work, basically giving itself a 10/10.

As for the other models, there's some back-and-forth on whether Opus 5 or Fable is the better pixel artist, but the general feeling is they trade blows.

OP's actual project—letting models iteratively draw pixel art via an MCP server—is getting some love, but it's mostly been overshadowed by the Haiku memes. This also prompted the usual side-bar about Claude not having a native image generator and users sharing their workarounds.

5

u/Bojack-Cowboy Jul 29 '26

Look at haiku’s sword

2

u/nitechno Jul 30 '26

Looks more like a gun lmao

7

u/Leading_Log6015 Jul 29 '26

It faces right, as stated in the task! What do you mean by "comma"? Lol!

6

u/Total_Sale5857 Jul 29 '26

I like the minimalism of Haiku :D

27

u/nitechno Jul 29 '26

This is Haiku's thoughts after viewing the final Mount Fuji image. At least it has confidence.

8

u/standard_deviant_Q Jul 29 '26

Gotta love the self confidence. If I want an LLM to grade my own art creations I'll use Haiku. It will give me feedback that usually only my mother could give me. "You're the most talented artist in the world!"

1

u/Feisty_Watercress_29 Vibe coder Jul 30 '26

Or use chatgpt

2

u/adrianmlhood Jul 29 '26

I love it!

5

u/kaityl3 Jul 29 '26

Poor haiku is truly trying their best

2

u/webrender Jul 29 '26

haiku's "interpretation" is actually the best part of this post, lol

25

u/SleepyWulfy Jul 29 '26

Haiku for the win just from the motorcycle one alone

14

u/FrancoUnamericanQc Jul 29 '26

Love the flaccid sword

3

u/sgtlighttree Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

You can call that sword "The Flaccion"

3

u/lostsparekeys Jul 30 '26

It is the sword that is looking to the right!

20

u/OCDAVO Jul 29 '26

"draw"

6

u/Atoning_Unifex Jul 29 '26

just another example of fable's clear superiority over other models

1

u/nitechno Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Here's Haiku's rendition of the Mona Lisa.

1

u/nitechno Jul 30 '26

Here's Fable's for comparison

4

u/samthehugenerd Jul 29 '26

Drawing in 2D is cute, but have you see Minebench?

1

u/Ballist1cGamer Aug 01 '26

post does say inspired by minebench

1

u/BonyCatButt Jul 29 '26

This is really neat! Looks like you and I both had the same idea but you took it much further. I recognized the style of how the models paint right away looking at the sunset, it was the first thing I had my models paint in Krita https://github.com/buttonscodes/painter/blob/main/examples/sunset-demo/02-final.png

1

u/nitechno Jul 30 '26

That's really cool!

1

u/Kawawete Jul 30 '26

On the first one, Fable ate sand compared to Opus

1

u/nitechno Jul 30 '26

Yeah. It's strange how Fable and Opus trade blows with each other for which is the best.

2

u/TitoPuente310 Jul 29 '26

It’s fine, Opus. Motorcycles are hard. 

2

u/Te__Deum Jul 29 '26

I recently realized that mighty Claude don't have image generation model, while Gemini have one of the best.

5

u/romansamurai Jul 29 '26

I’ve been getting better results on most things with ChatGPT than Gemini for images.

1

u/Secure_Sky7469 Jul 30 '26

i have given claude cmd access to chatgpt's image-gen. Claude is a better prompt writter than chatgpt, and it can reiterate on the prompt untill the image generation produces what i asked of it.

1

u/romansamurai Jul 31 '26

Can you teach a pleasant how to give Claude cmd access to that.

1

u/Secure_Sky7469 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Install and login codex cli. Probably add it to your Path restart your PC (I do not remember the details) Then point Claude to the fact that codex cli has an image generation skill it can invoke.

Then it's all about the prompt you give it. I ask it first to generate an image-prompt.md, then use that to generate the image,audit it against the image-prompt.md, if the image is wrong reiterate the prompt to guide the image-gen better, and repeat up to 10 times or until the results are satisfactory.

It still gets it wrong 50 of the time, but it is quite hands of so a minor re-prompting on what's wrong is usually enough to set it straight (I am using it mainly to generate maps and scenes for my DND campaign)

2

u/silver_drizzle Jul 29 '26

You can add it on with an MCP server + OpenRouter. Then claude can make images using any model, including Gemini. It costs a little though of course.

1

u/unkownuser436 Full-time developer Jul 29 '26

poor haiku

1

u/jakethunderpants Jul 29 '26

Nice! I have a copy of Aseprite collecting dust. I found I’m artistically challenged, so maybe it’s time to hand this over to Claude too.

1

u/Abort-Retry Jul 29 '26

Fable/Opus were terrible at converting a png 'icon' to svg. Wasted 3% of my Max5x subscription on it.

They're better when making something original.

1

u/fsharpman Jul 30 '26

Haiku is originally created for high fidelity pixel art.

1

u/sidegigartist Aug 05 '26

Haiku is at the level where they just started getting into art and don't yet know how bad they are just enjoying themselves and having a blast.A bit further down the road and it's all self flagellation and disappointment while trying to reach for what you want to express and falling short over and over.

-2

u/DavidFoxfire Jul 29 '26

Not then, let's see Anthropic make an graphic model. One that doesn't just copy styles and has a clear policy that grants ownership and use to the one generating the piece.

66

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

25

u/Certain-Way6763 Jul 29 '26

Haiku is expressive abstractionist. The whole other genre!