Midjourney AI Crafting AI Portraits (Patreon)

How to Create Portraits in the Latest Version of MidJourney

Hi again! Creating portraits with AI has come a long way. Just a couple of years ago, most AI tools struggled with generating realistic people — especially hands. You’d often get awkwardly angled limbs, spaghetti fingers, or an alarming number of digits (six, eight… why stop there?). It was equal parts hilarious and maddening.

Thankfully, MidJourney’s most recent update has seriously stepped up the game. You can now create beautiful, authentic portraits, complete with natural facial expressions, realistic skin textures, and yes — even proper-looking hands!

Overcoming the “Fake Face” Effect

One of the biggest hurdles in portrait generation used to be how unnatural people looked. AI-generated images often featured overly glossy skin, exaggerated makeup, and eyes that felt a little too intense — like everyone was trying to sell you skincare products in a sci-fi commercial.

But lately, MidJourney has made huge improvements in toning all that down. With the right prompts, you can create people that look candid, believable, and refreshingly human.

Prompts for More Natural-Looking Portraits

To help MidJourney create portraits that feel grounded and real, try including descriptive keywords that mimic everyday photography styles. These work wonders:

• candid

• natural lighting

• street photography

• urban setting

• Reddit-style photo

• Instagram casual

• vintage 2000s

These terms help the AI lean into realism and avoid that overly posed, plastic feel.

Transform the Style with Art Prompts

Want your portrait to feel like a scene from a movie? Or maybe like it belongs in a museum? That’s where art style prompts come in. These modifiers tell MidJourney what kind of visual lens to apply to your subject.

Here are some style-specific prompts to experiment with:

• 🎞 Cinematic:
   cinematic lighting, Kodak Portra 400, film grain, high contrast

• Great for dramatic, moody shots — like movie stills.

• 🖌 Painterly / Fine Art:
   Baroque oil portrait, Caravaggio lighting, Rembrandt style, oil on canvas

• For classic, museum-worthy looks.

• 💻 Digital Art / Concept Art:
   ArtStation HQ, digital painting, soft brushwork, concept character portrait

• Perfect for stylized characters and fantasy elements.

• 🌸 Anime / Manga:
  anime portrait, manga character, soft cel shading

• Adds whimsical charm or sharp stylization.

• 💃 Editorial / Fashion:
   Vogue magazine, fashion editorial, studio lighting, sharp shadows

• Think fashion-forward, high-gloss, and ultra-polished.

Combining these with your realism-focused prompts can help you strike just the right tone — whether you want “Instagram influencer at brunch” or “Ghibli princess caught in a windstorm.”

Test and Tweak for the Best Results

All the prompts featured here were originally found and adapted from MidJourney’s Explore page. Each one has been tweaked and tested by me to get better results, especially for portrait creation.

I highly recommend experimenting — changing just one keyword can completely shift the vibe of your image. And the more you play around, the more you’ll develop your own signature prompt style.

10 Prompts for you to try out for yourself: 

1. average 19 year old girl holding starbucks cup at the mall, shot on iphone, instagram, snapchat photo — ar 3:4

2. Charming storefront as a backdrop, Beautiful Asian woman taking a selfie, radiant smile, Candid street style photography — ar 3:4

3. black man smiling, very short hair and short beard, taking a selfie, location bangkok street, — ar 3:4

4. 32 year old man wearing wearing light blue colour open shirt and green colour round neck t-shirt inside, black hair, standing pose, in a studio setup, light colour solid background, looking into the camera, in side angle, photo — ar 3:4

5. iphone photo of a gen-z guy sitting on stone steps in london, wearing contemporary baggy streetwear clothing, skater aesthetic, posted to instagram — ar 3:4

6. phone photo of a handsome man with shoulder-length black hair, in his thirties. posted to reddit — ar 3:4

7. a 70 year old woman wearing a white sweatshirt with jeans, candid photo, high tonal range — ar 3:4

8. candid instagram style of close up front shot of man smiling, selfie frontal view, shot on 35mm analog camera with blurred background of outdoor street, sunny — ar 3:4 — stylize 200

9. half body photography of a european woman, she wears a t-shirt with a narrow line and straight, standing in front of a wall of industrial concrete in the color of sand, light is direct and soft, — ar 2:3 — stylize 200

10. low quality photo posted on facebook, side view shot of man wearing black sport shirt with long raglan sleeve in mountains, posing, natural appearance, — ar 3:4 — stylize 200