Ongoing establishing shots art and maps
Hello all you lovely people!
I'm running a campaign and trying to make a point about non-generative AI art with a lot of the people I'm playing with, so figured I'd try to combine the two!
We're doing my very first completely homebrew setting (long-time DM, but I've done modules, or homebrew campaigns in settings, some homebrew one/minishots), and part of this is exploring a previously unknown region (to the characters and the culture they come from, at least). One of their jobs is to scout and map the area, and they have a cartographer character, and I had previously suggested they should map everything out as they go, and build things collaboratively. That, alas, has turned into an "we'll have the AI do that", which I'm not overly pleased about.
So, time to put my money where my mouth is, and what I'd like is an ongoing arrangement where every two weeks I have a nice piece of establishing art to show the party about their location, which might be of different locales or different parts of the same locale (outside shot of the city vs a shot of a particular district or building, for instance), combined with an ongoing map that gets updated as they explore (while leaving everything else fuzzy to give me room to improvise what's needed for the plot of the moment). For establishing shots, this is the kind of thing I'm thinking of, though I'm flexible on the level of detail in it. Overall it's a pretty classic fantasy romp as far as the setting goes, and I like the kind of realistic approach we see in that example as opposed to cartoony or anything like that.
Given how our campaigns tend to go, I would expect this would be an ongoing arrangement of at least a year, possibly longer depending on how things play out.
As far as budget, I don't rightly have any idea how much this might cost, so I'm open to pitches, but in my head I'm vaguely thinking a couple hundred USD a month. Have to talk with my wife when I get specifics, but we believe pretty strongly about the damage generative AI is causing, and would like to support non-gen-AI art, and this seems a good way to do it.
Happy to answer more questions, not really sure what else would be helpful but I can update accordingly!
EDIT: Since people are asking for an example description of a location: "The City of Waterfalls, with a giant aqueduct pouring water on top of the city that cascades into different waterfalls, landing on top of ziggurats that are actually terrace farms)"
EDIT 2: For a more detailed description since that seems to be a common request:
The City of Waterfalls has a giant aqueduct that terminates high above the city, pouring out water that cascades out in different directions, creating the various waterfalls. Those then land in various places, but prominently, in ziggurats (either Mayan or Sumerian inspired) that are actually terrace farms using the water. There's a dried out riverbed that also has people living in it, with much more recent construction (the ziggurats are also recently constructed, using some of the material from the ruins). There are ruins because while there are now 20,000ish people living here, it used to be a much bigger city. Surrounding is desert, and various mostly-buried remnants of civilization.
Vibe-wise, it's supposed to evoke wonder and awe at what people can do even after a calamity, be gorgeous and impressive (think Hanging Gardens for the vibe of the terrace farms), and overall showing the beauty that can rise after disaster, even if it takes centuries or millenia.
We want to see this from the perspective of the party arriving on a train (the train is /much/ more advanced technology than most of what we see here, but there are various water wheels/etc. making use of the falling water to power grindstones/magical works).