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Midjourney Prompts For Substack Posts

Experimenting with creating a consistent aesthetic with Midjourney for Substack posts

David Erickson

Apr 17, 2023

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant italian renaissance insanely detailed cinematic — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant italian renaissance insanely detailed cinematic

I’m trying to arrive at a consistent asthetic for the images I create for my posts here on Substack. I’ve decided to go all-in on using Midjourney to create these images for several reasons:

I cannot consistently find images that match my content using free stock image libraries
Even if I had a budget to buy images from the Getty Images of the world, many of the topics I discuss are so conceptual that even the for-fee image libraries will lack what I need
Midjourney is simply an amazing AI image generator

At this stage, I’ve been playing around with prompts just to try and understand how they work and what Midjourney is capable of.

Chapter 2 of my book is devoted to websites, the first section of which discusses the hub-and-spoke approach to digital marketing for which I use the “all roads lead to Rome” metaphor to illustrate the concept.

What follows are my attempts to create an image for that chapter section. Each image includes the prompt I used, which should give you an idea of what different prompts can produce.

I started out just using “all roads lead to rome” followed by some art style keywords:

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome pointillism art style — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome pointillism art style

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome pixelated art style — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome pixelated art style

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome dmt art style — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome dmt art style

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Interesting but not what I’m looking for. Apparently, you can use any word concantenated with the word “core” to produce interesting results. So I tried:

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome gloriouscore — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome gloriouscore

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome oppulentcore — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome oppulentcore

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome ancientcore — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome ancientcore

Better, but for the first one, a road doesn’t actually run through the coliseum. And I don’t really want ruins; I want something that looks like Rome during the heyday of the Roman Empire. So I try this:

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era

Adding “during roman empire era” to my prompt made it even better. Next, I tried adding artistic styles just to see their effects.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era anamorphic art style — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era anamorphic art style

Okay, adding “anamorphic art style” looks pretty cool but I can’t tell if those objects in the air are supposed to be birds or a scene out of Inception. And I’m still seeing ruins.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era bacteria art — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era bacteria art

This is a pretty cool look except you definitely get what you ask for when you prompt for “bacteria art”!

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era infrared — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era infrared

You get an interesting photographic look with the “infrared” prompt, which could provide a consistent aesthetic across all images I might create but it’s not what I’m looking for.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era batik — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era batik

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era majolica — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era majolica

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era mosaic — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era mosaic

Prompting for “batik,” “majolica,” and “mosaic” gives you an ornamental or decorative style which is not what I want.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era kirigami — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era kirigami

“Kirigami” gives you a very cool paper construction look but, again, not what I’m looking for and this style wouldn’t work for me as a unifying theme.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era ferrofluid — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era ferrofluid

Wow. While “Ferrofluid” generates a very cool look, it’s too abstract for my needs. Next, I tried just adding descriptive words.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era hellscape — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era hellscape

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era pastoral — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era pastoral

“Pastoral” adds animals! Except that beast of burden in the foreground sports five legs and some weird musculature while the elephant-like behemoth lacks a trunk and makes up for it with three tails. 🤣

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era majestic — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era majestic

The “majestic” prompt generates a decent look. The spots in the air look like birds, not pieces of buildings, but don’t focus too much on the sculpture atop the bilding the foreground. What is that thing?!?

Next, I added the world “triumphant” to go along with other descriptive words.

Midjourney prompts: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant beautiful AND no cars — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant beautiful AND no cars

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant high definition — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant high definition

“High definition” generates a very nice look except, are those spider webs on the arch in the foreground? Those must be some mighty big spiders. Also, those spots in the air don’t look like birds to me.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant insanely detailed — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant insanely detailed

These are getting closer to what I’m looking for: I want to illustrate a road or roads leading to Rome.

Midjourney prompt: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant italian renaissance gimmiewongst — Midjourney: all roads lead to rome during roman empire era triumphant italian renaissance gimmiewongst

Looks like including the phrase “italian renaissance” might have helped remove the ruins from the image. Or did the nonsense word “gimmiewongst” do that?

Next, I try different lighting keywords.