we built four fortnite concept skins of ai ceos for $1.39 in image calls

@elonmusk, @finkd, @JensenHuang and @DarioAmodei, rebuilt as our thehype robot. no game engine, no 3d artist, nothing modeled by hand.

the whole build ran in one claude code session on opus 5 (medium).

the pipeline that worked:
1. references first – our robot turnarounds from thehype videos plus photos of each person, sorted into folders on disk
2. claude writes the prompt, @OpenRouter runs gpt-5.4-image-2 (@OpenAI) – front and back view on a magenta backdrop, so keying to alpha comes out clean
3. @MeshyAI pro, both views in, texture toggle on – download the textured glb, then apply the rig, pick animations, download the animated fbx with all of them
4. hand the glb and the fbx to claude code with Blender installed – it transfers the rig onto the full-resolution mesh and renders the demo
5. 3.08m polygons in the final render – 14.8x what meshy hands back rigged

per character:
• gpt-5.4-image-2 – $0.26 to $0.58, ~16k tokens
• meshy – 30 to 35 credits
• opus 5 (medium) – 79.2m effective tokens on the first, 2.2m on the fourth
• time – 1.4h to 1.8h of machine time, mostly rendering

that opus curve is the finding: 36x less on the fourth character than the first, same result on screen. you pay for not knowing the pipeline, not for the work. image spend barely moved – $0.58 to $0.29.

what you need to repeat it: a claude subscription, openrouter balance, meshy pro, blender. api spend on all four – $12.94.

@FortniteGame – worth talking to the four of them and to us about shipping an ai bosses collection?
and to everyone else: how do our robot homages to the people running ai land? which one would you play?

watch the full build via link: