Scenario 4: Illustrations

Let's summarize what we've learned

Through the previous lessons, you should have imitated some images by now. If not, I recommend practicing more - there's no substitute for hands-on experience.

Let's quickly summarize what we've learned:

• The core of writing prompts is to "describe the image you want clearly and in detail". The more detailed, the closer the output will match your requirements.
• The best way to improve prompt writing skills is to imitate others' work, then try writing yourself, and finally look at others' prompts.
• To describe images clearly, you can break it down from these aspects:

	Stock Image	Logo
What type?	stock photo of	graphic logo of
What's the subject?	two Asian men in suits shaking hands	cat
What's the background?	in front of the main entrance of the office building	null(not needed for this scene)
How's the composition?	focus on two hands	null(not needed for this scene)
What style?	background bokeh	vector simple minimal

• For style, there are two useful techniques - adding art movements and artist names.

Watercolor

Starting this chapter, we'll look at some more complex designs. Watercolor illustrations are probably more appealing to kids.

Let's follow the template we learned:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	light watercolor	watercolor
What's the subject?	a sleeping cat	a sleeping cat
What's the background?	white background	watercolors are usually on white paper, so white background
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	Studio Ghibli	I like the Ghibli style

Let's try one with a scene:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	light watercolor	watercolor
What's the subject?	children playing on the beach	children playing on the beach
What's the background?	white background	watercolors are usually on white paper, so white background
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	Jon Klassen	I like this illustrator, e.g. This Is Not My Hat

Generated images:

Botanical Illustration

In addition to watercolor, I also like botanical illustrations. Let's draw some roses:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	botanical illustration	botanical illustration
What's the subject?	types of rose	I want to draw roses for illustration
What's the background?	white background	usually on white paper
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	Pierre-Joseph Redoute	famous botanical artist

Let's also draw some dinosaurs:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	dinosaur scientific illustration	dinosaur scientific illustration
What's the subject?	Tyrannosaurus	Tyrannosaurus
What's the background?	white background	usually on white paper
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	Andrey Atuchin	famous Russian paleoartist, biologist, scientific illustrator

Here are the results. Midjourney doesn't seem to know T. rex only had two legs! But the first resembles Andrey Atuchin's style a lot:

Children's Book Illustration

I feel that just using Tip 5 - adding artist names can produce decent children's book illustrations. I haven't read that many, but many know Peter Rabbit. Let's try a cat in a similar style:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	illustration	illustration
What's the subject?	A cat standing and running on two legs in a denim jacket	I want to draw a cat standing and running on two legs
What's the background?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	Beatrix Potter	She wrote Peter Rabbit

Let's also try the style of E.H. Shepard, Winnie the Pooh's illustrator (the 4 on the right). To make it resemble his style more, I didn't include much background:

Behance Tech Illustration Style

Honestly this isn't a real illustration style, but as someone in tech I think it's pretty useful. Note that just adding "tech illustration" gives a similar style but lower quality. Adding "behance style" (Behance being a site where designers share work, often tech-related like app designs) makes the output more polished and aesthetically pleasing:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	tech illustration	tech illustration
What's the subject?	man jogging by the waterfront	a man jogging by the waterfront
What's the background?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	style of behance	adding this makes the style more Behance-like

I also tried a coffeeshop scene that many are familiar with:

	Prompt	Explanation
What's the subject?	a lady drinking coffee at the computer in a cafe	a lady drinking coffee on her computer at a cafe

Results:

Finally, there's a mysterious parameter - adding some company names like "by Microsoft" seems to produce subtle differences, though I'm not sure how Midjourney interprets this. The 4 on the left use Microsoft, the 4 on the right use Apple. Aside from the Apple logo in #4, I can't really tell the difference - maybe it uses the brand colors?

If interested, please explore and share your findings(🆘 Collecting examples)

Coloring Book Illustrations

Finally, this may not count as an illustration style, but many have likely seen coloring books you can fill in with crayons or markers. I think it's great for kids to generate these, print them out, and color them in. Here's an example prompt for a T. rex:

	Prompt	Explanation
What type?	clean coloring book page	coloring book
What's the subject?	Tyrannosaurus	Tyrannosaurus
What's the background?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
How's the composition?	null	not too important, let AI improvise
What style?	black and white	black and white style

Just change the subject to "Snow White" for that version. Results: