Another week, and I'm still no artist. But since I love how Midjourney captures and reimagines existing art, this week I did a deep dive on another favorite - Runemancer Florre. I tried probably about a hundred attempts, using the original art and various different prompts to get the effect I wanted. I found that Midjourney v5 still struggles quite a lot with limbs and hands, so it took a lot of re-rolling to get what I wanted. Also at the end of this post I've included a poem about Florre. Enjoy!
For this first one, I focused on photorealism and close-up portrait. I decided to keep a neutral background to really focus on the subject.
The next one's a more active pose where I wanted to see emphasis on the magical bird. It was very difficult to get that to work correctly and in the end "magic" overtook "bird" most of the time (there were also lots of weird results where flying fingers would be shooting out of the magic...).
The result above made me think of Kristen Stewart, so I decided to give that as a part of the prompt for this next one. You can really see the influence there in everything from the look and facial expression to the tone and the clothing.
For the next one I stepped up on the level of detail, specified the atmosphere in some more detail, and asked for some different poses. Overall I think this one turned out beautifully, though I couldn't quite get the hands and arms to look right. The detail on Florre's clothing here is amazing though.
Here's an example where the bird turned out reasonably well. Again some slight oddities with the shapes & sizes of the arms and fingers, but overall a nice result that stood out for me.
I asked for more contrast on several attempts, and a few of them stood out beautifully. Here again I think the result looks a lot like Kristen Stewart though she wasn't in this particular prompt. Maybe the original art resembles her... In this one I also love how the shadow behind the magic looks bird-like. I also love the contrast of the greens and purples.
Here's a really amazing one that stood out when playing around with different aspect ratios and with more specifics around the tone and mood of the picture (e.g. cinematic lighting, intricate detail, magical tone). Too bad she has 6 fingers... 😅 I noticed that re-rolling typically didn't improve on that btw (in fact it often makes it worse).
Finally here's another one with a different pose and lots of detail. Florre looks very elvish in this rendering, and her posture resembles the original art. I also like the way MJ rendered the purple background flowing behind Florre, almost like an artistic flat rendering of her skirt flowing in the wind.
A Dance of Runes
In a realm where magic doth reside,
A girl named Florre did abide,
With purple hair, bright and fair,
A Runemancer, brave and rare.
Born to defend with Riftwatcher ties,
With nature's forces she allies,
Colorful birds dancing 'round her head,
As through the forest Florre tread.
When the Chaos Legion appeared,
The earth beneath her quaked and sneered,
Florre stood tall, her heart aflame,
Prepared to face them, unashamed.
She called upon her runes of might,
And summoned forth the winds of light,
The birds around her formed a shield,
As Florre fought, she would not yield.
A sweet symphony of battle sung,
As rune and chaos magic flung,
But Florre's spirit, strong and proud,
Would not be swayed by darkness' shroud.
The Chaos Legion met their fate,
Defeated by Florre's magic state,
And as the last of them did fall,
She stood triumphant, strong and tall.