Fantasy Art Prompting with DALL•E 2

Having posted dozens of different fantasy characters generated using DALL•E, I’ve been asked
a lot about what prompts I use and how to keep a consistent style.

This is a brief guide with tips and tricks I’ve learned on how to get the best results.

Index
Prompt Structure
Detail vs Abstract
Try & Try Again
Fixing Mistakes
Examples

Prompt Structure

Here’s an example prompt and the output from DALL•E:

"A stunning portrait of a scrawny, ugly, old grave digger. He wears filthy,
muddy rags. He stands in an empty grave holding his shovel. A storm is on
the horizon. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

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Let’s break down the prompt into sections:

Image type

A stunning portrait of...

Character

…a grave digger.

Physical Appearance

He is old, ugly and scrawny.

Clothing

He wears filthy, muddy rags.

Scenario

He stands in an empty grave holding his shovel.

Setting & Atmosphere

A storm is on the horizon.

Style Modifiers

Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K.

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Lots of these steps can overlap or be omitted completely but I always keep steps 1 and 7 the
same to maintain a consistent style. In fact I have a text replacement shortcut set up so I don't
have to keep typing out number 7!

Let's go through each step.

1. Image Type

It may seem strange to ask for a stunning portrait but writing an effective prompt is all
about guiding DALL•E towards the type of image we want to see in the output and we want to
steer it towards the millions of images it has seen that is associates with the word stunning ,
since they're likely to be more aesthetically pleasing in the framing, angle, colouring and
character poses.

You could always try different adjectives here - perhaps beautiful or striking . I
sometimes use A stunning, realistic portrait.. if I find the style of the output is
consistently too cartoony.

If we just kept sections 1, 2 & 7 - omitting the appearance, scenario & setting - DALL•E would
produce a tightly cropped portrait of the face with a generic (often grey) soft background.

Adding in the appearance means DALL•E will pull the perspective back a bit to make sure it can
include what we've requested - the character's clothing.

Adding in the scenario & setting usually means DALL•E will pull back further, allowing us to see
the cave, corn field or lakeside setting we've specified.

Character

Here we define the race and character type, for example female warrior , dark knight or
elven queen .

Fantasy races are a mixed bag in DALL•E. Elves come out well with etherial features and pointy
ears.

Orcs and goblins tend to have the correct face shape and stature but require a green-
skinned modifier if that's what you're after.

Note that depending on the character class you may have to use black-skinned as a
modifier for a person of colour rather than just black . You'll get very different interpretations
for black knight and black-skinned knight .

It's worth playing around with the alignment of the character here. Descriptors such as noble ,
pious , evil , holy or heroic work well, as do expressions of personality such as
charismatic , fearsome , aggressive and so on.

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If you keep the gender and human race (white, black, asian etc) ambiguous in the prompt,
DALL•E seems to add random modifiers to generate a range of sexes & races. So a powerful
warrior may result in an asian woman in one generation and a white man in the next.

Physical Appearance

Here we assign physical characteristics such as age, stature and weight.

For example: She is young, muscular and heavily tattooed.

Although it doesn't read well as prose, listing multiple synonyms can weight the prompt towards
what you're after. He is ancient, enormous, fat, rotund and obese makes sure that
DALL•E knows we're after a larger gentleman.

There are some descriptors that DALL•E doesn't fare so well at, such as scars and missing
limbs, generally ignoring those in the output.

Clothing

DALL•E really excels at interpreting clothing descriptions.

For example: He wears a black hooded cloak or She wears brown leather
armour .

It can sometimes get confused if you use too many colours. He wears black armour and a
red cloak - this will often work but can sometimes mix up which item of clothing is which
colour.

Pure white/black & Bright white/black work better than just black & white.

I've found using the words intricate and ornate are really effective at adding detail to
armour or clothing. If you want the character to have particularly shiny armour then using the
word polished works well.

Consider describing the condition of the clothing as well as the material, like fine, ornate
silk robes or filthy muddy brown rags .

Getting creative using unusual materials for your clothing can yield really strong results. Try A
dress made from 1000 butterflies , armour made from tree bark or a cloak
made from moss .

Scenario

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Here's where I describe the spell the wizard is casting or the expression on the druid's face.

He holds a magical glowing blue orb between his hands, his eyes closed
in concentration

She howls in anger at the sky

As she prays, she glows with a holy bright light

He wields a large, vicious axe

She sits on a throne made from bone

Spell descriptions work well but DALL•E blocks some phrases like shooting , death &
blood so you may need to get creative in describing workarounds. Maybe A drop of dark
red liquid hovers above his hand to describe blood magic without the word blood .

DALL•E is dreadful at producing weapons. Staffs, axes and sometimes daggers can work OK
but specific weapons like long swords or bows usually don't work. Shields are pretty hit and
miss too.

Setting & Atmosphere

This makes a huge difference to the quality of the output. I generally include a mixture of
location, weather condition and time of day.

For example:

The setting is a mountain-top at night, stars shine in the sky

The setting is an ancient forest at dawn. It is raining.

The setting is a cosy tavern at night

The setting is a windy cliff-top at golden hour

I've found adding atmospheric descriptors can really help bring a scene to life too:

The setting is a dark cave. His face is lit by torchlight, embers hang
in the air

The setting is an attic, dust is suspended in sunbeams

The setting is a cornfield at dusk, fireflies dance around her

Try thinking of real-world locations too. If you place your character on an Icelandic black
beach or Peruvian salt flats , the quality of the lighting and atmosphere found in those
places is brilliantly replicated.

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 Style Modifiers

These are the key to keeping a consistent style. Epic fantasy art steers DALL•E towards
the general art-style we're after, Award-winning on Artstation lifts the quality of the
output and also pushes the style towards the best type of concept art you see on Artstation and
Sharp, 4K really does make a difference in the level of detail in the image.

Some people also like to add one or multiple artists names to try and replicate their style here -
for example Martina Fačková , Greg Rutkowski or Chris Rallis .

Detail vs Abstract
The sections above can all contribute to generate interesting images but sometimes it can be
more effective to omit descriptions and let DALL•E does some of the creative heavy-lifting. I
tend to do this when adding too many descriptors lead to a 'muddy' result.

For example if you keep it simple and write A warrior howls in anger (also keeping
sections 1 & 7), DALL•E will generate an appropriate outfit and appearance for your character.
There may be 4 very different characters in the output images and can lead to some ideas for
what to prompt next.

Similarly, rather than giving an overly instructive description of a spell being cast, opt for
something more abstract with lots of room for creative interpretation - you may be surprised
what DALL•E produces.

For example: He holds the universe between his hands

This can work well with vague descriptions of entire characters too:

The Knight Of The Ocean , The most powerful sorcerer in the world or The
Beggar King

Try & Try Again

Sometimes an output will have 3 terrible cartoony images and once decent one. Sometimes it
won't have any usable ones at all, so try and try again!

I usually find that if I haven't found an image I like the look of in the second or third generation
then I'll tweak the prompt - adding or removing detail - until I'm getting better results.

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Fixing Mistakes
DALL•E is notoriously bad at generating hands and eyes. With eyes, sometimes you'll have a
perfect image but one eye is a black hole, a deformed mess or looking in a completely different
direction to the other eye.

It costs more credits but it can be fixed simply by selecting 'edit' and painting out either just the
offending eye or both of them.

This usually provides you with some great new options that can totally change how your
character looks.

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This technique can be used to change any part of an image - maybe a hand accidentally has 6
fingers or you want a different kind of potion in your wizard's hand.

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Examples
Here are a few example outputs along with their prompts to give you some idea of how it all
comes together.

"A stunning portrait of an ancient wizard. He wears ornate crimson robes

and smokes a pipe. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp,
4K."

"A stunning portrait of a veteran warrior. He is enormous, muscular and

heavily tattooed. He wears leather armour. The setting is by a misty lake
at dawn. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

"A stunning portrait of an evil knight. He wears pure black polished armour
and holds a massive axe. The setting is mountaintop at night, there are
stars behind him.. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp,
4K."

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"A stunning portrait of a mysterious female rogue. She wears a black hooded
cloak. The setting is an attic with dust hanging in sunbeams. Epic fantasy
art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

"A stunning portrait of a noble king. He wears ornate polished golden

armour and an intricate crown. He sits on a throne, a fire behind him.
Embers hang in the air. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation.
Sharp, 4K."

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"A stunning portrait of a powerful elven sorcerer. The setting is an alien
dimension that exists between planes of reality. Epic fantasy art. Award-
winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

"A stunning portrait of an evil witch. She is old and haggard and wears
pure black silk robes. She concentrates as she casts a spell, a glowing
blue orb between her hands. The setting is a dark cavern. Epic fantasy art.
Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

"A stunning portrait of a druid king. He is a thousand years old. He wears

a robe made of moss and a crown made of twigs. The setting is a dark forest
at golden hour. Epic fantasy art. Award-winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

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The thousand years old didn't come through in the output above so I re-emphasised the
age in the next prompt:

"A stunning portrait of a druid king. He is a ancient and wrinkly, a

thousand years old. He wears a robe made of moss and a crown made of twigs.
The setting is a dark forest at golden hour. Epic fantasy art. Award-
winning on Artstation. Sharp, 4K."

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