Easily Create Consistent AI Characters from a Single Picture

Have you ever wanted to make a character in AI look the same across multiple images? Maybe you have one great illustration but need different poses, actions, or settings. Keeping your AI character consistent has been hard, especially for detailed or non-human designs. But there's a straightforward way to do it now. This guide shows you a simple process starting with just one image to create many illustrations of that character, all looking consistent.

Start with Your Character Image

The first step is having an initial 2D illustration of your character. This can be an image you made with AI or found elsewhere. It helps if the background is simple or plain, but it's not always required. We will use this single image as the base to create a full set of poses and expressions.

Build a Character Sheet Using AI Video

You might think about using AI image tools to just expand your original image. The problem is, it's really difficult to get the exact poses you want and maintain the character's look. Things like hairstyles, colors, and small details often change. This is especially true for non-human characters where fur patterns or clothing details can easily get altered.

Instead of fighting with direct image expansion, we can use AI video generators. These tools can add simple movements to your character image, which helps create different angles and poses without changing the core design.

Use AI Video to Get Movement

One way to do this is using a tool like Hayo. You upload your single character image to the image-to-video section. Then, you add a simple text prompt describing a small movement, like "she turns and walks to the side." Choose the correct model, generate the video, and you'll get a short clip where your character moves slightly. This keeps the character's appearance very consistent while showing different body positions or angles. You can generate a few videos with different simple motions to get a variety of movements.

Collect Images for Your Character Sheet

Once you have the videos, the next step is to extract still images from them. You can use online tools designed for this. Find frames in the video where the character has useful poses. Look for images that are clear and don't show deformations. Save these different pose images into a folder. If you plan to generate close-up shots of your character later, make sure to crop some images to get headshots and include them in your collection. This collection of images with different poses becomes your character sheet.

Want to make this process even faster and handle larger batches? Tools like the Midjourney Automation Suite can help streamline repetitive tasks, allowing you to manage character sheet creation and future image generations more efficiently.

Train an AI Model for Your Character

With your character sheet ready, you can train a special AI model to recognize and generate your specific character. This teaches the AI what your character looks like, including their style, features, and clothing details.

Train Your Custom Model

Platforms like OpenArt allow you to train your own AI models. Find the option to train a character model. Give it a name and a very short description (like "illustration of a female character with light blue skin"). The AI will learn the details from the images you upload. Upload the images from your character sheet – having around 7 to 10 good poses is often enough, though you can add more. Training usually finishes quickly, sometimes in under 10 minutes.

Generate New Scenes with Your Model

After your model is trained, you can start generating new illustrations. Select your custom character model. In the prompt area, describe the scene, pose, and environment you want your character to be in. For example, you could say "blue skin character, red leather jacket, sitting on a rock in a grassy field with robots in the background." You can adjust settings like the image width or height to get the aspect ratio you need. Generate several samples to pick from. The AI will now create images of your character in the new situations you described, keeping their appearance consistent. Remember to mention clothing details in your prompt if they are important, as the AI might sometimes pick up on other clothing seen in your training images if you don't specify.

Turn New Images into AI Videos

Just like you did before, you can take the new images you generated and turn them into AI videos using the same process. Upload the new image to your video tool and add a prompt describing movement in the scene, like "character rides a motorcycle fast." This lets you bring your consistent character illustrations to life in short animations.

This Method Works for Many Character Styles

This process isn't limited to one style. It works well for detailed characters, simple ones, human-like characters, and non-human characters with unique features or art styles. By following these steps, you can take any initial character image and create a wide range of consistent illustrations for your projects.

Creating many varied images and videos often involves repetitive steps like prompting, generating, and selecting the best outputs. Tools that automate parts of the Midjourney workflow can save significant time and effort. The Midjourney Automation Suite is designed to help with these tasks, letting you focus more on creative direction and less on manual work.

Having a consistent look for your characters is key for storytelling and creating a recognizable presence across different pieces of art. By using AI video to create a character sheet and then training a custom model, you gain the ability to place your character in any scene while keeping their look the same.