Midjourney has always been interesting to me, partially because it was shamelessly trained on art scraped and digested online (alongside popular and copywritten media), often without the owner’s permission.
But Midjourney’s Niji has a specific mode designed around a softer, more anime-style, hand-drawn aesthetic. As someone who’s taken art class after art class, and completed said classes with only the ability to kinda shade a circle, it’s an interesting look into “what could be”.
I’ve accepted that I’ll never produce great art myself, but getting an AI to generate a few concepts for me? Infinitely easier!
In the spirit of sharing and collaboration, feel free to use these prompts to generate your own work. Or, let me know what you were able to generate from the prompts in the comments below. But please, don’t sell this AI-prompted or any other AI-created art as your own. 🎨
🐈 Sleepy Cats In The Garden
cat sleeping in [insert location here], in the style of anime-inspired character designs, animated gifs, naturalistic depictions of flora and fauna, dappled, light-filled, french countryside, soft, muted palette, playstation 5 screenshot, i can't believe how beautiful this is, alla prima --ar 9:16 --niji 5notes:
- default mode, modeled using niji 5
- it’s easier to prompt midjourney with “sleeping cat” versus “sitting” or “laying down”, as you risk a very human-esque shaped cat literally sitting.
- niji specifically has a bias toward a white cat with light markings, and can’t really figure out how to generate any other coat-colors.
- these make really cute phone backgrounds!
- watch the number of paws… sometimes you’ll get some uranium-exposed cats.
🍂 Seasons
a girl with [hair/eye color, holding something], [describing location], in the style of art nouveau-inspired illustrations, bright orange and gold, michael martchenko, naoko takeuchi, light red and light pink, patricia polacco, colorful dreams, pastels, brightly lit --ar 16:9 --niji 5notes:
- i had the best and most creative results with “scenic mode” on niji, despite not being designed around generating or modeling people. 🤷♀️
- adjusting the colors you’re inspired by in the prompt produces really interesting results, especially with vivid colors (cyan, light pink, light red, dark purple, gold).
- “in the style of” prompts are generally more effective with the default style of niji, but you can test which one you prefer.
- generating people in scenic mode without describing hair or other characteristics tend to end up with people standing behind a clock, for some reason.
- majority of this prompt borrowed from here.
☁️ Cotton Candy Clouds
a beautiful [color] sky with clouds, constellations, in the style of anime aesthetic, soft outlines, cool tonal range, soft and dreamy tones, in the style of anime aesthetic, colorful animation stills, serene ink paintings, streaks of color --ar 16:9 --niji 5 notes:
- it’s just clouds! ☁️
- try out different tone keywords like cool vs warm, or other colors like pink, cyan, orange, gold, etc.
- You can ask it to add constellations/stars or not, depending on your preference.
Brin Bliss 
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