Hopeful Beasts is a father-son duo based in Colorado who draw invented creatures that are part animal, part vegetable, and part mineral. Dad draws the outlines, and Pedro spots the features, colors each figure, and gives it a name, sometimes narrating a story about what is happening in the image. They began making the creatures, which they call Hopeful Beasts, collectible as NFTs.
In 2025 they began Artificial Emergence, training a GAN model on their own artwork to generate a new set of Hopeful Beasts, inspired by the early AI cryptoart practice of Pindar Van Arman, David Young, and Artonymousartifakt. After 100 generations, the model's lines and colors had converged toward the duo's own style while taking on a look of their own, and Pedro picked his favorite among the new creatures and named them, with those names then seeding the names of the 100th generation. The project minted 100 creations, including a handful of the human-made inputs and ten dynamic Hopeful Beasts, with ten reserved for the duo's own collection, and opened for pre-mint on August 17, 2025.
