Midjourney: Use Your Own Quick Sketches for Greater Control!

AI tools like Midjourney can produce amazing imagery almost by default, but sometimes it's tricky to get specific results that match what you had in mind.
Here's a demo of how you can use a drawing tool like Procreate to quickly whip up a colored sketch, and use that to tell Midjourney what you want to see, for greater precision and control over the output.
Whether you're just starting out as a creative, or you've been working in the industry for years, this tip will help you use AI to take your imagination to the next level.
Bonus tips at the end for using Figma as an infinite canvas to organize your AI-generated output images, and further edit them from there!

[@antonwinter630]

enjoyed how you went through your entire process

[@kaizen5023]

Fantastic tutorial, brother! I didn't think of doing the sketches using the tracing method from a stock photo that way, that's super cool. Your vids are getting better and better, super valuable.

[@geoatherton5214]

Thanks Kaizen! Hope this is a helpful tool in your workflow toolkit :)

[@tmdesign7450]

Thanks Geo! I met you a long time ago at Dream Dance in Seattle while you were live painting, good to see you here, peace brother!

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey right on :) Good to see you in cyberspace this time! Peace

[@JonahHache]

Loved the tutorial, but also the article concept you were talking about making is SO MY JAM! Keep up the awesome stuff!

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey thanks for encouragement, this is a good nudge for me to actually publish that article on my blog XD. I’ve been focused more on youtube lately but I’ll share the link here when it’s up. Ergonomic setups make a big difference in creative enjoyment AND output!

[@MrTubber44]

Excellent workflow! Thanks for sharing! Cheers.

[@geoatherton5214]

Thanks for saying so, glad you enjoyed it!

[@jakejakejakejakejakejake]

Dude that was great! Thank you! ^_^ X

[@AderetKnits]

I found this very helpful thanks

[@annavoinova7396]

Very helpful! Thanks

[@geoatherton5214]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for saying so :)

[@mattwelcome2154]

This was terrific and exactly where I'm at right now. The design for desk, monitors etc. The stand up desk, perfect. Definitely need to see what else you suggest; may I have a link to this article/blog?

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey thanks Matt, glad to hear this subject resonates with you. This comment was the nudge I needed to actually pick up the article draft to finish it up, I'll circle back here and reply with the link once I've posted it :) Cheers.

[@GG-yh8mw]

do you think the elongated results are due to the fact the source image ratio and target ratio are differents?

[@geoatherton5214]

Yep, exactly. Helps a lot to set the target ratio to a similar size.

[@johnallen3090]

Awesome video! Thank you! One of the best I've seen so far about midjourney but what is figma? Can you do a video on that?

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey thanks for the kind words! Your comment has got me thinking about doing a Figma-focused video, I'll muse on that :)

[@SolariaEsoterica]

Awesome! Thank you! Subscribed! Do you know how to get a side view of a character? I'm trying to get a side shot of my character running

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey Copper Phoenix Studios (cool name by the way!), here are a couple of suggestions: In the prompt, I would include keywords like ‘side profile shot of a person running,’ and then I would find a good reference image for a person running, and sketch my own quick image based on that (with a little color to help the AI narrow it down) and feed that back into Midjourney. Good luck with your explorations!

[@SolariaEsoterica]

@@geoatherton5214 thank you! I tried that. I just can't get it to do it. You know those old black and white images of a man running and it's frame by frame of every stage of his run? I use that and I blended it with my character and it took me a while to get him wearing the right outfit. But I've been using that. And then I saved a bunch of images of my character in lots of positions from different angles. And then when I want to put him in a scene I use that image as the reference image plus the scene. To be honest it's better but not great. I'm writing a children's book about a little Viking boy. Thankfully I happen to have one who will model for me at any time. My son. And so I've been setting up the lights and taking photos of him. I sewed the outfit. And so now I'm basically just patching him in with Photoshop. That was my old school work around. Feel free to use it. 🤷‍♀️

[@hoffmanjeff]

Nice little hack with the sketch. It looks like you might be confusing midjourney with using --v 4 and --v 3 in the prompt. You will just want to have one version. Plus just entering your sketch image and using --v 4 would provide a much better result.

[@geoatherton5214]

Right on, thanks. I notice Midjourney automatically adds one of those every time even if I didn’t include it, I’ll look into that.

[@channelnotfound403]

@@geoatherton5214 You probably have a "prefer suffix" set. if you just give it the command "/prefer suffix" it will clear the current one you have setup.

[@okse]

This is great, this is how Ai should be used, it should be embraced, not feared.

[@geoatherton5214]

I think so too, ultimately. It's a super complex subject, but it's here to stay, so I figure we may as well embrace the beneficial aspects!

[@sociallyresponsiblexenomor7608]

2 months ago and using midjourney? o.O

[@geoatherton5214]

That's right! Great account name BTW XD

[@5timesm]

All obsolete… V5 is out 🥳

[@totemdes]

Nope, V5 needs this kind of help too sometimes, in my experience.

[@puffypuff]

I think drawing is easier

[@geoatherton5214]

Drawing on it's own is great too! I really enjoy it, sounds like you do too. 👍

[@sanspeakrus]

Cringe

[@jayc6159]

I’ve put so many of my own designs in MJ that I can write prompts “in the style of @myusername” and it will make designs in a style very similar to my own.

[@geoatherton5214]

Hey right on :) That sounds awesome, I should try that next. Thanks!