So I thought I would go through my process step-by-step with a new character just to show exactly how I generate my portraits. We’ll try with Percival Took. He’ll get a more detailed write-up when I get around to describing Katarina de Winter’s crew, but for now a brief description is a halfling knife thrower /swashbuckler who styles himself as a suave, sophisticated action hero.

So my first step is usually a basic description – like if I were giving a police report, together with a style I know well. I’ll use my typical “Icewind Dale Style”. So the first prompt will be:

“halfling male, mid 30s, brown hair, easy smile, leather vest, flipping a throwing dagger, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

That gives me this as a first step:

Not terrible, but none of them fit well. Two of them are throwing dice. One has a spear, One looks like he missed his toss and is about to stab himself in the back, and none of them really look like Percival.

So the next thing I do with halflings is switch to “hobbit” and see if that gets closer. I’ll also change “flipping a throwing dagger” to “tossing a dagger in the air” to see how that looks.

“hobbit male, mid 30s, brown hair, easy smile, leather vest, tossing a dagger in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

That didn’t work. The dagger is a bit better. But the halfling look suited him much better. So I’ll go back to the first and add some more detail.

“halfling male, mid 30s, short neat brown hair parted on the left, easy confident smirk, black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Looks a bit too young. Percy should look more like a halfling James bond. So we’ll up the age and add “british”. Also tweak the modifiers a little. Note that I’ve read that terms near the beginning of the list have more impact than terms near the end.

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, cool, confident, short neat brown hair parted on the left, easy smirk, black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

Getting closer. But I’m not digging that cape thing, so we’ll call it “short vest”. He’s also a touch scrawny, so we’ll add “athletic build”. Finally he’s still looking a bit too stone-faced, so we’ll change “easy smirk” to “lopsided grin”.

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, cool, confident, athletic build, short neat brown hair parted on the left, lopsided grin, short black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

Better. Especially on the lower left. But the expression is still not quite right, and I don’t know what its doing with his hair in the pics on the right. So we’ll reorder the tags a bit and add “strong jawline” to see if he gets a bit more of a heroic look.

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, short neat brown hair parted on the left, lopsided grin, strong jawline, cool, confident, athletic build, short black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

Now we’re getting somewhere! Lower left is looking really good, although we’re still rather stonefaced. Lower right looks like he’s impersonating a ballet dancer. So we’ll tweak the smile again and say more about how we want him to be behaving. I like the lower left, so we’ll go with that.

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, short neat brown hair parted on the left, lopsided grin on his face, striding confidently towards the viewer, strong jawline, cool, confident, athletic build, short black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

Hmm. Might have over-done it on the striding. How about slowly moving?

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, short neat brown hair parted on the left, lopsided grin on his face, slowly moving confidently towards the viewer, strong jawline, cool, confident, athletic build, short black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

I think we’ll just drop the moving part altogether. Going for a portrait in this one rather than an action shot. Here’s also where I wish I had found a consistent way to specify negatives – like “no facial hair” – but we’ll try “clean shaven”

“halfling male, british, mid 40s, short neat brown hair parted on the left, lopsided grin on his face, strong jawline, clean shaven, cool, confident, athletic build, short black leather vest over white shirt,black pants,high black leather boots, tossing a knife in the air, dark fantasy, rpg portrait by justin sweet, soft focus, blurred, minimalist features, oil paint, drawing, in the snow, d&d, dark shading”

That top left is great! The hair isn’t quite what I had in mind at the start, but it really suits him. At this point I’ll just save the one’s I like (the two on the left) and run the same prompt again a few times to see what all falls out. But I like the top left pretty well, so there’s Percival Took!