2.6 – Character Reference Lesson

Lesson Overview

Consistent characters are important for anyone telling a story with images, from comics and gaming to branding and marketing. The Character Reference feature in Midjourney fills a key gap: it lets you use a previously generated character as the foundation for new images. Instead of creating a fresh character every time, you can upload or select a favorite one and place them into new scenes or situations—such as “doctor,” “clown,” or “astronaut”—without losing their distinctive appearance.

This lesson is especially useful for creators who need visual continuity, like content creators making serial illustrations, or those building brand mascots. It’s also valuable for experimenting: you can change a character’s scenario and immediately see how well their appearance carries over.

The lesson covers the core workflow—choosing the right character, prepping the reference, picking the Character Reference tool, and adjusting the traits you want transferred. You’ll also see tips for refining prompts and using character weight, which controls how much of the original look (like clothing or hairstyle) gets reused. When done well, you can anchor your storytelling visually, placing a single character into new worlds or situations with just a few clicks.

Who This Is For

Anyone seeking to maintain visual consistency with characters in Midjourney will benefit from this lesson. This includes:

• Comic artists and storytellers shaping ongoing narratives
• Marketers crafting character-driven campaigns or mascots
• Game designers prototyping avatars and NPCs
• Content creators needing a recurring visual “host” or persona
• Hobbyists building worlds across multiple images
• Educators or students illustrating stories with recurring figures

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Character Reference is most valuable after you’ve designed a character you want to reuse. With this feature, you no longer need to start from scratch for each new illustration involving your character. For example, you might first create a portrait of a character and, using Character Reference, place them as a pilot, a teacher, or a hero in subsequent prompts.

In practical project workflows, this means you can develop comics or visual sequences with predictable, likable characters. If you’re producing a pitch deck, lesson, or brand campaign, you can introduce the same familiar character throughout, saving time and building audience recognition. This step comes after initial character design but before refining series-based prompts or combining with stylistic tweaks.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Previously, every time you needed a recurring character in Midjourney, you’d rely on repeated prompting and luck—often resulting in inconsistent results and wasted credits. The new Character Reference feature swaps guesswork for precision: you select a base image, upload it, choose the Character Reference tool, and know your next image will “anchor” to those character features.

This method stands out for speed and control. Adjusting the character weight with `--CW` allows you to match only a character’s face (ignoring original clothing) or preserve their full look, reducing manual editing. For visual storytellers or teams, this translates to a matching set of images, ready for use in presentations, stories, or brand assets, without tedious retouching or rerolling for luck. Combining this with style references multiplies your creative options, letting you put the same character in cyborg, fantasy, or realistic settings—all with minimal effort and high output quality.

Practice Exercise

To get comfortable with Character Reference, try the following activity:

1. Generate a portrait of a character in Midjourney—a headshot of a middle-aged person, for example.
2. Use the Character Reference feature to lock in this character, then prompt Midjourney to present the same person in various scenarios (doctor, clown, astronaut), adjusting the `--CW` parameter to `0` to emphasize just the face.
3. Review the outputs. Does your character look the same across the different roles, or does their appearance change? Which scenario gives the most consistent results—and do any features get lost or changed?

Reflect on how well the tool kept your character’s identity while adapting to new prompts.

Course Context Recap

This lesson builds on earlier lessons that introduced image references and prompt customization. Here, the focus shifts to visual consistency and how to keep the same character recognizable across many images—an essential feature for sequential storytelling and brand creation. The next lessons continue exploring advanced referencing options and creative workflows, allowing you to combine multiple features for even richer outputs.
Continue with the series to see how character reference can interact with other powerful tools in Midjourney.