How to Build Better AI Art Generator Prompts: Unleashing the Creative Power of AI
If you’re interested in creating your own AI-generated art, it’s helpful to know how to use AI-generator prompts to achieve the best results. This article will explore the basics of crafting ai art generator prompts that can create stunning, high-quality generative art. From understanding the basics of prompt building to selecting the best descriptive elements, this post will provide tools and techniques for unleashing the creative power of AI. Let’s dive right in!
Introducing AI art and the basics of prompt building
The emerging field of AI-generated art is pushing the boundaries of creativity by combining traditional art creation methods with artificial intelligence.
So, what is prompt building? The text input you use to provide your AI image generator with instructions on what image to create is called a prompt. Prompt building/engineering is the process of putting together the right language and instructions to generate your desired results. By understanding the basics of prompt building, you can learn to collaborate with AI generators and unlock endless creative possibilities.
In this article, we’ll delve into the basics of building AI art generator prompts. We’ll also provide pro tips on how to build better prompts and bring your creative visions to life.
Beginner prompt building examples to help you master the craft
It’s helpful to think about prompts like building blocks. You can modify each block to adjust the look and feel of the art you create with your art ai generator of choice. Although there are a lot of text-to-image ai generators to choose from, you’ll be able to apply this structured approach to prompt building and generate impressive results. The image generator I’ll be using to create the images for our example prompts will be Midjourney.
If you’re interested in trying Midjourney yourself, you’ll just need a Discord account before you go sign up on the Midjourney website.
Let’s start with a basic prompt example.
A very basic prompt structure could look like this — [ main objects ], [ detailing ]
Ex. A teddy, sitting in a chair with a bowl of popcorn
Here are a few example images of the above prompt generated in Midjourney.
Simple prompts give the AI a lot of room for interpretation. This helps explain why one of our example images looks more like an illustration and the other like a photograph.
The more detail and direction you’re able to put into your prompts, the more control you’ll have over the resulting output.
A more complex version of our basic prompt structure could look like this — [art medium], [main objects], [attributes], [detailing]
Ex. An oil painting of, a teddy, wearing a top hat, sitting in a chair with a bowl of popcorn
Given a more detailed prompt, Midjourney does a great job of generating images that resembled oil paintings and adding a swanky top hat to our teddy.
Next, we’ll look at a more advanced prompt build. We’ll also highlight a few specific prompt elements that promise to take your generative artwork to the next level.
Tips for crafting meaningful and engaging prompts that will bring out the best in your AI art generator
We already know that the more detailed and descriptive our prompts are, the better. Here are a few of the best prompt elements you should include to craft a great prompt.
- Art Medium ( Ex. a photo, ink drawing, oil painting, carving, origami, etc. )
- Style ( Ex. futuristic, steampunk, fantasy, medieval, etc.)
- Artist ( Ex. Salvador Dali, Joe Madureira, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Vincent Van Gogh, etc. )
- Lighting ( Ex. sunset, natural lighting, torch-lit, cinematic lighting, moonlit)
Using our top hat wearing teddy as the subject, a much more creative and dynamic prompt structure could look like this — [art medium], [main objects], [attributes], [style], [camera shot], [lighting], [detailing], [artist]
Ex. a detailed digital painting of, a teddy surrounded by a powerful explosion of popcorn, wearing a top hat, Sin City style, action shot, cinematic lighting, sitting in a chair with a bowl of popcorn, in the style of Sin City by Frank Miller
By experimenting with interesting and unusual combinations of prompt input elements, you’ll be able to push your creativity in new and unexpected directions.
Here are a few creative variations of “Top Hat Teddy” art created using the above prompt elements and Midjourney.
As you can see, by adding more descriptive elements or building blocks to our prompts, we start to see more expressive output from our AI assistant.
It’s easy to compare learning to build prompts with learning a new language. They both offer similar challenges. After you have a handle on the concept of prompt/language structure, you’ll need some useful vocabulary to work with.
It can be tough to know what kind of options you have available when you’re just getting started. Luckily there are some great resources available to help you start mixing and matching prompt elements like a pro.
Tools to Help You Craft Better Prompts for Your AI Art Generator
Along with the rising popularity of generative AI platforms like Dalle-2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney, there are also resources and communities springing up to share tips, techniques, and resources.
Let’s start with prompt builders. Builders are great resources to help you become more familiar with useful prompt building blocks. Prompt builders are also great reference tools for coming up with new ideas for creative prompts.
Prompt builders -
Learning from other prompt builders and artists is another excellent way to jump-start your prompting journey and pick up inspiration for your next eye-catching piece of artwork.
AI art/prompt galleries -
Here are a few more helpful resources you might find useful.
Additional AI art resources -
- The AI Art — a list of prompt modifiers with visual references
- Urania AI — a list of artists with visual references
Anyone with experience creating AI-generated art can tell you it isn’t as straightforward as pressing a few buttons and expecting the AI to output a finished masterpiece.
It can take a fair amount of trial and error adjusting, arranging, and tweaking your prompts until you start to dial in on exactly what you’re looking for. Understanding the basics of AI art generator prompt building, along with the right resources, will put you on a fast track to impressive results.
