Generate Children's Book Illustrations in Many Styles with Krea AI and an AI Chatbot

What you’ll get

You will learn how to generate unique children’s book illustrations in many different artistic styles, all based on a single scene description. This approach works by combining a detailed base prompt with specific style descriptions, using an AI chatbot to create new prompts for an image generator.

Tools you need

• Krea AI (freemium): An online tool that generates images from text descriptions, known for its style variations.
• Gemini (freemium): An AI chatbot that can rewrite and adapt text based on your instructions.

Steps

1. Understand the base scene: The author started with a very detailed description of a scene. This detailed prompt ensures that the core elements of your image remain consistent across different styles. Read through it to understand the scene it describes:

   Nighttime setting under a full moon partially obscured by clouds, large haunted house filling the upper background, tall steep roofs, multiple narrow windows glowing with light from inside, large front doorway open at the center-right background, interior light flooding onto the curved stone pathway below, small shadowy humanoid figure standing inside the doorway, backlit by the interior glow, wearing clothing and scarf. Foreground dominated by a frightened witch girl running toward the viewer, positioned slightly left of center, arms stretched outward while running, one leg lifted mid-step, mouth wide open in panic, huge eyes with reflective highlights, short messy hair with subtle reflections, thin round glasses, skin. Oversized floppy witch hat with a bent pointed tip and wide brim, ribbon wrapped around the hat, tied bow on the right side, small ring accessory attached to the ribbon, long-sleeve shirt under a vest, loose necktie, short layered pleated skirt with frilled edges, long flowing scarf trailing dramatically behind her, striped thigh-high socks, shoes. The witch girl holds a small pumpkin candy bucket in her right hand, the bucket tilted outward while wrapped candy …

   This prompt describes a nighttime haunted house scene with a frightened witch girl in the foreground.

2. Find Krea’s style moodboards: Open Krea AI in your web browser. You can go directly to the app at https://www.krea.ai/app. Once there, look for the “Moodboards” section in the gallery. Moodboards are collections of images that showcase different artistic styles, like “Watercolor,” “Pixel Art,” or “Oil Painting.” The author used these moodboards to get ideas for styles.

   You should see various visual styles presented as image grids.

3. Choose a style: Browse through the moodboards and pick one style that you like. For example, you might choose “Anime Style” or “Gothic Art.” Note down the name or a brief description of the style you’ve chosen.

   You should have a specific art style in mind for your illustration.

4. Ask an AI chatbot to combine the prompt and style: Open Gemini (or another AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude) in a new tab. You will ask the chatbot to rewrite the base scene description to incorporate your chosen style. Copy the base prompt from Step 1 and paste it into the chatbot with the following instruction:

   Rewrite the following image description to be in the style of [chosen style, e.g., 'a vibrant watercolor painting']. Focus on how the style affects the visual elements, colors, and overall mood. Do not add new objects or characters. Here is the original description:
   Nighttime setting under a full moon partially obscured by clouds, large haunted house filling the upper background, tall steep roofs, multiple narrow windows glowing with light from inside, large front doorway open at the center-right background, interior light flooding onto the curved stone pathway below, small shadowy humanoid figure standing inside the doorway, backlit by the interior glow, wearing clothing and scarf. Foreground dominated by a frightened witch girl running toward the viewer, positioned slightly left of center, arms stretched outward while running, one leg lifted mid-step, mouth wide open in panic, huge eyes with reflective highlights, short messy hair with subtle reflections, thin round glasses, skin. Oversized floppy witch hat with a bent pointed tip and wide brim, ribbon wrapped around the hat, tied bow on the right side, small ring accessory attached to the ribbon, long-sleeve shirt under a vest, loose necktie, short layered pleated skirt with frilled edges, long flowing scarf trailing dramatically behind her, striped thigh-high socks, shoes. The witch girl holds a small pumpkin candy bucket in her right hand, the bucket tilted outward while wrapped candy …

   You should get a new, longer prompt that describes the scene in your chosen art style.

5. Generate the image in Krea: Go back to the Krea AI app (https://www.krea.ai/app). Find the text input box where you can type your image description. Paste the new, style-adapted prompt you received from the AI chatbot into this box. Then, click the “Generate” button.

   You should see Krea AI generate an image of the haunted house scene, rendered in the specific art style you selected.

Original source

This workflow was inspired by Reddit user /u/fragilesleep, who shared their experiments with Krea 2 for children’s book illustrations. They demonstrated how to generate over 100 styles from a single base prompt by using an LLM to adapt the prompt with styles from Krea’s official moodboards.

Notes & variations

• Free-tier limits: Krea AI’s free tier typically has limits on the number of generations you can perform per day or month. If you plan to generate many images, you might need to consider a paid plan.
• Common mistake: Not being specific enough with your style instructions to the AI chatbot. If the chatbot’s output doesn’t quite capture the style, try adding more descriptive words about the style’s characteristics (e.g., “bright colors and thick outlines” for cartoon style).
• Tip for better results: Experiment with combining two or three style elements from different moodboards in your prompt to the AI chatbot. For example, ask for a “watercolor painting with a touch of gothic art” to create unique hybrid styles.