How to Keep a Character Consistent Across Image Prompts

Anyone building a set can keep a character consistent across image prompts with one lock paragraph, a frozen wardrobe, one unlocked axis per generate, and the same reference every time. Do it in Midjourney, Flux, or Grok Imagine before you type "same woman as last time" and meet her cousin.

Consistency is not a vibe. Consistency is tokens you refuse to edit. If an adjective moves, the person moved.

This is not the three-pass image revision loop. That loop revises one frame. This skill keeps one person across many frames. Do not mix them.

Keep a character consistent across prompts

Write the lock once. Reuse it verbatim. Unlock one axis. Reject cousins.

1. Write a lock paragraph once, on paper

Lock means facts that cannot change for the set:

"Mara, mid-30s, olive skin, sharp jaw, a thin scar through the left eyebrow, black hair in a tight bun, small gold hoop in the right ear, charcoal wool coat buttoned, black knit under it, standing."

Six to twelve facts. Age band, hair, skin, two face notes, wardrobe, one mark. Not her backstory. Not "kind eyes." Kind is a mood. Mood is not a lock.

Paste it at the top of every prompt. If you retype from memory, you will drop the scar.

If the first-prompt layers are still a soup, structure subject separate from atmosphere and keep Mara in the subject block only.

2. Freeze face, hair, and wardrobe as tokens

The model remembers strings, not chats.

Rules:

• Same name token every time. Mara stays Mara.
• Same hair sentence. "Tight bun" cannot become "loose bun" unless hair is the unlocked axis.
• Same coat sentence. "Similar charcoal coat" is a new coat.

In Midjourney, attach the chosen still with character reference. In Flux or Grok Imagine, attach that same still. Pick one canon still. Do not swap it for a prettier cousin.

3. Change only one axis per generate

An axis is pose, or location, or time of day, or a held prop. One.

Good: "Lock unchanged. Pose only: sitting on a stoop, three-quarter, looking right."

Bad: "Same woman, now in rain, hood up, smiling, night market, neon." That is five axes. You will get a new lead.

If you need night, that is atmosphere, and it is the only change. Smiles move faces. Budget them.

Segment the unlocked axis into its own block so a location line cannot rewrite the bun.

4. Reuse the same reference the same way

Build a tiny kit and do not improvise:

• Canon still (the one approved face).
• Lock paragraph (verbatim).
• Model (one).
• Reference setting (same strength every time).

If you raise reference strength because one pose drifted, you will glue Mara to the canon pose. Drift means the unlocked axis was too big. Fix the text. Do not crank a slider.

Do not pull a new face mid-set because it "feels closer." Closer is how series collapse.

5. Reject cousins. Do not almost.

Pass-or-fail the frame against the lock, not against beauty:

• Scar present.
• Bun present.
• Coat present and buttoned if the lock said buttoned.
• Age band unchanged.
• Name still in the prompt.

If any fail, reject. Do not inpaint a "better mouth" onto a cousin and call it Mara.

When the set is done, save the lock and the canon still with the Promptcrates tools for reusable skills. The next chapter should not start with "remember the woman."

Reusable skill card

Trigger: You need the same person in more than one image and you are about to type "same character please."

Input: One lock paragraph (six to twelve facts), one canon still, one model, one unlocked axis tagged pose or place or time or prop.

Output: One new frame. Lock tokens verbatim. Reference identical. Only the tagged axis may change.

Stop: If the lock breaks, reject and rerun. No slider chasing. No model swap. No "almost."

Takeaways

• A lock is six to twelve facts on paper, pasted, not remembered.
• Face, hair, wardrobe, and name are tokens. "Similar" is a new person.
• One unlocked axis per generate. Rain plus smile plus market is a recast.
• One canon still, one model, one reference strength.
• Reject cousins. Beauty is not consistency.