Consistent Characters in Leonardo AI: Character Reference Guide

Leonardo AI has a built-in tool for this: Character Reference, one of the Image Guidance options. It keeps the likeness of a person from a reference image while you change the scene, pose and style. It works best combined with a fixed text description of the character, which is useful on every model, with or without the feature.

How Character Reference works

Leonardo's help center describes Character Reference as generating an image "while referencing the likeness of a subject in the reference image." You add the image from the Image Guidance options in the prompt box, pick Character Reference, and set the strength.

The ranges come from Leonardo's API documentation; in the web app you choose Low, Mid or High.

Limits to know

• One image at a time. The help center says only a single image can be used for Character Reference.
• Model support is limited. At the time of writing, the help center's compatibility table lists Character Reference for SDXL models, with Phoenix and Flux marked "coming soon." The API docs list a Phoenix ID too, so check the model picker: if the option is greyed out, switch models.
• People work best. The help center notes it may not work well on non-humanoid subjects like pets.
• It is not a face swap. The API docs say it does not guarantee a perfect replica of a person.

Step 1: Create a clean reference image

The reference should show the face clearly, with nothing hiding it:

portrait of a young woman with short curly red hair, green eyes, light freckles, round glasses, neutral expression, facing the camera, plain light grey background, soft even lighting, head and shoulders

• Front-facing, eyes visible, no hands or hair over the face.
• Plain background, so the reference carries only the character.
• Neutral expression; you can add emotions later.

Step 2: Write a character block and reuse it

Character Reference holds the face. Clothing, hair details and accessories still come from the prompt, so write them once and paste the same block into every prompt:

Mira: young woman, short curly red hair, green eyes, light freckles, round tortoiseshell glasses, olive-green field jacket, white t-shirt, brown leather satchel

Then put the scene after it:

young woman, short curly red hair, green eyes, light freckles, round tortoiseshell glasses, olive-green field jacket, white t-shirt, brown leather satchel, buying flowers at a busy morning market, candid street photography

young woman, short curly red hair, green eyes, light freckles, round tortoiseshell glasses, olive-green field jacket, white t-shirt, brown leather satchel, reading a map on a windy cliff by the sea, overcast sky, wide shot

young woman, short curly red hair, green eyes, light freckles, round tortoiseshell glasses, olive-green field jacket, white t-shirt, brown leather satchel, laughing in a warm cafe at night, close-up portrait

Keep the block word-for-word identical. Changing "red hair" to "ginger hair" is enough to shift the result.

Step 3: Pick the strength per shot

High strength fights against big changes in pose and style; lower it when the scene matters more than an exact face.

Character sheet prompts

A character sheet gives you several angles at once, which also makes a good reference for later work:

character design sheet of a young woman with short curly red hair, green eyes, round glasses, olive-green field jacket, front view, side view and back view, full body, neutral pose, plain white background, consistent proportions

expression sheet of the same young woman, six head-and-shoulders views: neutral, smiling, laughing, surprised, angry, sad, plain white background

To use one of the views as a Character Reference, crop it to a single face first; the reference works on one subject.

Combine with Style and Content Reference

Image Guidance has two more options that combine well with a character:

For example, use Character Reference for the face and Style Reference for a watercolor look to keep a storybook character consistent across pages.

Troubleshooting

For choosing between Leonardo's models, see the Leonardo AI model reference. For expressions and moods to put in the scene part of the prompt, see the emotion prompt guide.

Build your prompt

The prompt generator helps you write the scene part of the prompt from subject, style and lighting options. It runs in your browser and does not generate images.

Primary sources

• Leonardo AI help center: Image Guidance
• Leonardo AI API docs: Generate images using Image Guidance