Of course! Here is the blog post rewritten to sound more natural, personal, and human, while keeping all the technical details and examples intact.

**

Finally, Consistent AI Characters: Your Guide to Midjourney, DALL-E 3, & Stable Diffusion

Let's be honest, we've all been there. You spend ages crafting the perfect prompt. The AI delivers, and it's pure magic—a character with a specific look, a unique style, a personality that somehow shines right through the pixels. You're thrilled! So you try to put them in a new scene—walking down a street, sipping coffee, battling a dragon—and… poof. They're gone. Replaced by a total stranger who only kind of looks like your original creation.

It's one of the biggest, most frustrating hurdles for anyone trying to do more with AI art. How are you supposed to build a story, a comic book, or even a brand mascot if your main character has a new face in every single picture?

Well, that's what this guide is for. We're going to fix it. We're moving beyond one-off images and into the world of true character consistency. I'll walk you through the universal basics that work everywhere, and then we'll dive into the seriously powerful, platform-specific tools that will make you the master of your character's destiny.

1. The Big Problem: Why Do My AI Characters Keep Changing?

Before we get to the solutions, it helps to quickly understand why this happens. At their core, AI image generators are masters of controlled chaos. They literally start with a screen full of random static (programmers call it "noise") and, guided by your prompt, slowly wrestle that chaos into a picture that makes sense.

That word, "random," is the key. Every time you hit "generate," even with the exact same prompt, the AI starts from a different point of randomness. It's like giving a sculptor a brand new, uniquely shaped block of marble for every single project. Even if you give them the same instructions, the final statues are going to have their own little quirks and differences.

This is why just writing a good prompt isn't enough. To get consistent characters, you need techniques that rein in that randomness and give the AI a much stronger, more persistent reference point to work from.

2. The Foundation: Mastering Seeds and Super-Detailed Prompts

This two-part approach is the bedrock of character consistency. It works, to some degree, on every platform. It’s less of a magic button and more of a good habit, but trust me, getting this down will improve all of your work.

#### The Power of a Hyper-Descriptive "Character Sheet" Prompt

Your first and best line of defense is an incredibly detailed prompt. You basically need to write a "character sheet" in text form that leaves as little to the AI's imagination as possible. The more specific details you provide, the more anchors the AI has to hold onto.

Let's invent a character to show what I mean. We'll call her Elara.

Instead of a simple prompt like a female elf explorer, we're going to build a full profile:

Face & Hair: elven woman with sharp, intelligent features, high cheekbones, almond-shaped emerald green eyes, a light dusting of freckles across her nose, long silver-white hair braided with small leather straps and tiny blue feathers. Clothing & Gear: wearing a practical dark green tunic made of worn linen, brown leather vambraces, a heavy leather belt with pouches and a silver buckle, and sturdy, well-worn boots. Key Accessories: a single silver earring in her left ear shaped like a crescent moon, a wooden staff topped with a glowing crystal.

Now, let's put it all together into a base prompt.

photograph of Elara, an elven ranger, sharp intelligent features, high cheekbones, almond-shaped emerald green eyes, light freckles across her nose, long silver-white hair in a complex braid with leather straps and tiny blue feathers. She is wearing a dark green worn linen tunic, brown leather vambraces, and a heavy belt with pouches. Cinematic lighting, deep forest background. --ar 16:9

See the difference? That level of detail dramatically increases the chance that Elara will look like Elara every time.

#### Taming Randomness with Seed Numbers

So what's a "seed"? Think of it as the starting number for that field of random noise we talked about. If you use the same prompt and the same seed number, you'll get a nearly identical image. It's basically the AI's "save state."

This is super powerful, but it comes with one big catch: if you change anything significant in the prompt (like switching the background from a forest to a city), the seed will produce a completely different, often chaotic, image.

So, how do you actually use it?

1. Generate a few images with your detailed character prompt until you get one you absolutely love.

1. Find its seed number.

In Midjourney: React to the image with the ✉️ (envelope) emoji. Midjourney will slide into your DMs with the job details, including the seed.
In Stable Diffusion (Automatic1111, etc.): The seed number is usually sitting right there below the generated image.

1. Plug that seed number into your next prompt.

For example, if our favorite Elara image had a seed of 12345, we could use it in Midjourney like this:

photograph of Elara, an elven ranger... [rest of the detailed prompt]... Cinematic lighting, deep forest background. --seed 12345 --ar 16:9

This is fantastic for making tiny tweaks, like changing cinematic lighting to dramatic morning light. But it's not the real solution for putting your character into brand new situations. For that, we need the heavy hitters.

3. Midjourney's Game-Changer: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Character Reference (--cref)

Okay, this is where things get really, really cool. In early 2024, Midjourney released its Character Reference feature, and in my opinion, it completely changed the game.

The --cref parameter lets you use an existing image of your character as a direct reference for new generations. The AI looks at your character in the source image and does its best to copy their face, hair, and even their clothes into a completely new scene. It's the magic button we were looking for.

Here’s how to use it, step-by-step:

Step 1: Create Your "Base" Character Image

First, use your super-detailed prompt to generate the perfect version of your character. Don't worry too much about the background; just focus on getting their face and overall vibe exactly right.

cinematic portrait of Elara, a beautiful elven woman with almond-shaped emerald green eyes and long silver-white braided hair. She has a determined expression. High fantasy concept art. --ar 4:5 --style raw

Let's imagine this gives us the perfect Elara.

Step 2: Get the Image URL

Click on the image, open it in your browser, and copy the URL from the address bar. It should end in .png.

Step 3: Use the URL with --cref

Now for the fun part. You can write a totally new prompt and just tack the --cref parameter on the end, followed by the URL you just copied.

Let's send Elara to a bustling city market.

Elara the elf walking through a bustling medieval city market at dusk, warm lantern light, looking curious. --cref https://s.mj.run/abcdefg.png --ar 16:9

Midjourney will now generate an image of a character who looks remarkably like your original Elara, just in a completely new environment. It's incredible.

Step 4: Fine-Tune with --cw (Character Weight)

But what if you want to change her outfit? You can control how much the reference image influences the new one with the --cw (Character Weight) parameter. It's a scale from 0 to 100.

--cw 0: Tells Midjourney to focus only on the face. Perfect for putting your character in new clothes. --cw 100: This is the default. It tries to copy the face, hair, and clothing from your reference.

Let's give Elara a fancy gown for a royal ball.

Elara the elf attending a royal ball, she is wearing an elegant dark blue gown, dancing. --cref https://s.mj.run/abcdefg.png --cw 20 --ar 16:9

By setting a low --cw, we're telling Midjourney: "Keep the face, but feel free to ignore the original tunic and give her the gown I'm describing in the prompt." This is an unbelievably powerful tool for storytelling and is, hands down, the current gold standard for easy character consistency.

4. The Pro-Level: LoRAs in Stable Diffusion and gen_id in DALL-E 3

While Midjourney's --cref is incredibly user-friendly, Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 3 have their own powerful methods that offer different kinds of control.

#### Stable Diffusion: Ultimate Control with LoRAs

For people who need the absolute highest level of control and consistency, nothing beats training your own LoRA in Stable Diffusion.

A LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation) is a tiny file that you train on a set of your own images. You'd "teach" it what your character looks like using 10-20 different pictures of them. Once it's trained, that LoRA file acts like a plugin that injects your character's exact likeness into any new image you generate.

The basic process:

1. Gather Your Data: Generate 10-20 high-quality, varied images of your character—different angles, expressions, and lighting are key.
2. Train the LoRA: Using an online service (like Civitai's trainer) or local tools (like Kohya_ss), you feed your images to the training program. I won't lie, this can get a bit technical, but the results are phenomenal.
3. Use Your LoRA: In your Stable Diffusion app (like Automatic1111 or ComfyUI), you just call the LoRA in your prompt.

Here’s what a prompt might look like using our Elara LoRA.

(masterpiece, best quality), photo of Elara_character standing on a snowy mountain peak, wind blowing her silver hair, epic fantasy, cinematic lighting, 8k uhd
<lora:ElaraCharacter_v1:0.8>
Negative prompt: (worst quality, low quality), deformed, blurry, ugly

That little bit of code, , activates the LoRA and sets its strength. This method gives you jaw-dropping consistency. You can put your character anywhere, in any style, and they'll look right. It's the professional's choice for a reason.

#### DALL-E 3: The Conversational Trick with gen_id

DALL-E 3, especially when you're using it inside ChatGPT, has a more conversational—and slightly less precise—way of doing things. It doesn't use seeds or reference images like the others. Instead, it relies on a hidden "generation ID" or gen_id.

You essentially have a conversation with ChatGPT and ask it to remember a character from a previous generation.

Here’s the workflow I've found works best: Step 1: Create Your Character

First, describe your character in detail.

You: "Generate an image of a grizzled old male space marine captain named Jax. He has a cybernetic right eye that glows faint red, a square jaw with a short grey beard, and a scar over his left eyebrow. He's wearing bulky, dark grey power armor. Portrait shot."

Step 2: Ask for the gen_id

Once you get an image you like, just ask for its ID.

You: "That's perfect! What is the generation ID for that image?"

ChatGPT: "The generation ID for the image of Captain Jax is zYxWvU1234."

Step 3: Reference the Character and gen_id in New Prompts

Now, you can create new scenes by reminding the AI which character you're talking about.

You: "Using the character from gen_id zYxWvU1234, show Captain Jax standing on the bridge of his spaceship, looking out at a swirling nebula through a large viewport."

This works by giving the model a strong hint about the specific image you want it to recall. It's not as rock-solid as --cref or a LoRA, but it's a huge improvement over starting from scratch every time and is the best tool DALL-E 3 currently offers.

5. Let's Build a Story: A Multi-Panel Scene with Your Character

Okay, theory is great, but let's put this into practice. We'll create a quick, three-panel mini-story using Midjourney and --cref because it's so fast and effective. Our hero will be a young, inventive gnome tinkerer named Pip.

Panel 1: The Idea

First, we need our main reference image of Pip.

charming gnome tinkerer named Pip, wild red hair sticking up, wearing oversized greasy goggles on his forehead, a leather apron over a striped shirt, expressive face, looking thoughtfully at a blueprint. Stylized 3D character art. --ar 4:5

(Remember, for this very first image, you generate it, pick your favorite, get its URL, and then use that URL in the next steps.)

Let's say we got our perfect Pip and his URL is https://s.mj.run/klmnopq.png.

Panel 2: The Work

Now let's show Pip hard at work, using his URL with --cref. We'll keep the --cw at 100 because we want him in the same work clothes.

Pip the gnome tinkerer in his workshop, sparks flying from a strange clockwork device he is welding, intense look of concentration, tools scattered everywhere. Stylized 3D character art. --ar 4:5 --cref https://s.mj.run/klmnopq.png --cw 100

Panel 3: The Result

And for the finale, let's show Pip proudly showing off his new, slightly chaotic invention. We can even change the aspect ratio for a big finish.

Pip the gnome tinkerer holding up his new invention, a small clockwork bird that is flapping its wings, a huge smile on his face, triumphant pose. Stylized 3D character art. --ar 16:9 --cref https://s.mj.run/klmnopq.png --cw 100

And just like that, by using --cref every step of the way, you've created a coherent visual story. Pip is still Pip—same hair, same goggles, same apron—across three totally different moments. Building prompts like this can get tricky, but tools can help. ✨ Try our Free AI Prompt Maker to easily structure and save your character-based prompts.

Whether you're a storyteller on Midjourney, a pro on Stable Diffusion, or an explorer on DALL-E 3, these tools finally break the cycle of one-off characters. You now have the power to create persistent, recognizable people who can live, breathe, and adventure across as many images as you can dream up. Now go create that webcomic, that children's book, or that epic series you've been waiting to make. 🎨