Best tool for character concept art: Midjourney or Leonardo AI

Short answer

- If you want the most painterly, high-end single images and can handle more manual consistency work: Midjourney.
- If you need a production-friendly pipeline for repeatable character assets, custom-model training, inpainting and outfit/pose variants: Leonardo AI.

Recommendation

For a game project where you must deliver consistent character concepts and turnarounds across poses and outfits, start with Leonardo AI for the core character model (train/save a character asset), then use Midjourney selectively for stylistic exploration if you need a higher-end look. Leonardo will save you time and give repeatability; Midjourney is great for exploratory art and moodboards.

Decision criteria (how to choose)

- Consistency & repeatability: Leonardo (custom models, asset manager, inpainting). Midjourney is less deterministic for many angles.
- Final image quality/style range: Midjourney (painterly, dramatic results).
- Workflow speed and iteration: Leonardo (in-app project management, faster outfit swaps).
- Skill level: Midjourney works fast with prompts; Leonardo benefits more from learning model training and inpainting.
- Budget & team size: Midjourney subscription for solo creatives; Leonardo’s custom models/credits and team features can be more cost-effective for production teams.

Best-for / Avoid-if

- Best for Midjourney: single-concept exploration, moodboards, high-art renders. Avoid if you need consistent multi-pose turnarounds.
- Best for Leonardo: consistent character turnarounds, outfit swaps, inpainting fixes, building a character library. Avoid if you only want a quick one-off stylized image and don’t want to invest time training/setting assets.

Practical workflow checklist (step-by-step)

1. Planning: define art style, camera lens, color palette, lighting, silhouette. Lock these as style tokens.
2. Reference sheet: gather front, 3/4, side refs, close-up headshot, palette swatches, fabric samples.
3. Base model/training: in Leonardo, create a private model or asset set (DreamBooth-style) with 8–20 consistent reference images. If using Midjourney, collect best reference outputs and keep prompts/seeds.
4. Prompt template: create a consistent prompt skeleton (style, lighting, camera, character traits, negative terms). Save it (use ChatGPT to generate prompt templates if you want).
5. Generate poses: produce turnarounds by prompting specific views (front/side/back/3-quarters) and include the same style tokens and color palette. Use image-to-image to nudge pose while preserving features.
6. Outfit variants: use the trained model or inpainting to swap clothing, keeping head/face references pinned. Produce multiple passes at medium res, then up-res the chosen ones.
7. QA pass: compare silhouettes, facial proportions, and color palettes. Make small corrective inpaints or re-trains if character drifts.
8. Export & version control: save PSDs/PNGs with metadata (prompt, seed, model version). Keep an asset manifest for team use.

Notes on tools

- Use Leonardo for the heavy lifting: model creation, inpainting, outfit swaps and consistent outputs.
- Use ChatGPT to craft and standardize prompt templates and variation lists.

This approach balances quality and repeatability: Leonardo for production consistency, Midjourney for high-end stylistic exploration when needed. Good luck—if you want, share one of your reference images and I’ll draft a prompt template and a checklist tailored to your art style.

Compare Midjourney and Leonardo AI