Mastering MidJourney Techniques for Building Reliable and Compelling Literary Figures

Key Takeaways

• Midjourney lets you create consistent characters using the “cref” or “character reference” command.
• When using the “cref” command, provide a direct image link like “–cref https://picturelink.jpg “ in your command.
• If the image you want to reference is saved to your device, upload it to the MidJourney chat, right-click it, and copy its address to use in the command.

One of the worst limitations of using Midjourney and other AI image generators is the lack of repeatability. However, it’s now possible to create a character and then repeatedly use that character in subsequent images. While it’s not perfect yet, it’s a powerful creative feature in the right hands.

What Is a Consistent Character?

In Midjourney terms, a consistent character is a humanoid subject in an existing image that the AI can extract and recreate in a new image. So, for example, if you’ve created a character, or there’s a character in an image that you like, you can tell Midjourney to extract it and reuse it.

It’s important to understand that Midjourney is basically using AI image recognition methods on the image that you provide. So, in other words, it’s not like it’s cutting and pasting the character, but rather it’s converting it to a sophisticated set of attributes that make up that character. This means that, in many cases, the extracted character won’t look exactly like the source, but we’ll get to how you can mitigate that in just a minute. First, let’s look at “cref” or “character reference”, the command that makes all of this possible.

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How to Use the “cref” Command

Just like command for aspect ratio (–ar X:Y) the cref command goes into your prompt, stacked at the end with any other commands. To use it, simply put “–cref” at the end of your prompt, followed by the URL of the reference image, separated by a space. For example:

–cref https://picturelink.jpg

You can tell whether you have a direct link to an image by ensuring that you have “.jpg” or another supported image format file name in the link.

All you have to do is right-click on an image, and then copy the image address, which you can then use with the command. If you want to use your own image which doesn’t already have a link, there are two ways to get the link depending on how you’re using Midjourney.

If you’re using Midjourney via Discord, then simply send the image to the Midjourney Discord bot where you make images using prompts. Once the image is sent to the bot, click on it once to open it, right-click on it and copy the image address.

If you’re using the new Midjourney Alpha web interface , simply click the little picture icon to the left of the prompt bar. Then upload the image of your choice. Once you have it uploaded, right-click on it and copy the link. Then you can use the –cref command as you do in Discord.

That’s really all there is to it, so next let’s run through it step-by-step.

Let’s Make a Character Step-by-Step

In this example, I’m going to generate a character, then use that character in subsequent generations. I’ll be using the Discord interface here.

First, let’s make a character with the following prompt:

/imagine an anime style female elf character with blond hair and green eyes in a blue uniform

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Next, I pick the one I like the most using the upscale buttons. In this case, I clicked “U1” to upscale the upper-left image.

Now I copy the image address as described above in the previous section. Then I use this prompt with the full address pasted at the end.

/imagine an anime style female elf character with blond hair and green eyes in a blue uniform playing the violin –cref [INSERT IMAGE URL HERE]

Then, in the output, you can see the character has been reused, but in the new requested pose.

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Tips and Tricks

Note how I’ve re-used the character description portion of my previous prompt. This isn’t strictly necessary, but I find it has better results in many cases. Even if I just typed “plays the violin” as my prompt, the cref image would still have been used and the character would still have appeared.

What’s less optional is the specified art style, which should be the same if you want the reference character to be as close as possible. Even better, you can use “–sref” in the same way you use cref to reference the art style of the input image. Remember you can stack these commands, but you’ll have to provide the image URL for each one independently.

However, one really cool thing you can do is use a character reference, and then deliberately specify a different style. So, for example, you might take a cartoon character in one style, and convert it to something else. If you’re thinking you can take photos of real people or celebrities and cartoonize them, well that doesn’t work very well in my testing, and it may even be a deliberate safety measure to prevent abuse.

Now you know how to do more with the coolest characters you’ve generated on Midjourney, or from anywhere else really!