Mastering Mood
How to Create Compelling Images That Tell a Story
As creatives, we all know the importance of visual resources in expressing a message, whether artistic or commercial. In general, art evokes emotions and memories, and it confers to the creative expression the potential to become remarkable. Especially in front of a well-crafted picture, the image can profoundly impact the viewer. Some of those messages conveyed in visual art can affect how a person sees the world. They can influence behavior, share values, etc.
That is why learning to create images that capture attention and tell a story is so important.
In this article, you will learn one of the possible methods: mastering mood.
We’ll explore how to efficiently use “mood” instead of “theme” to create images that evoke emotions and convey a message. Here, we’ll construct the ideal prompt together, so you will learn the steps of generating images using text-to-image AI tools by setting the right mood.
Before a disclaimer: this article was designed to be used with AI tools that allow users to generate images from text, for example, Midjourney, Dall-E, and Stable Diffusion, to mention the most popular.
The task is to illustrate the music video for “Advice” by Lee Taemin.
Step 1: Understand what to include in the prompt.
Before we dive into image generation, it’s essential to understand our object/idea/inspiration.
In this case, Taemin’s “Advice” song and music video.
Here we have three elements: video, song, and singer.
The lyrics emphasize the importance of embracing individuality and resisting crowd judgment.
The video visuals reinforce the song’s message, and Taemin’s outfits do the same.
The music video explores in different ways how external opinions affect an individual, focusing on the negative effect of it. It also shows the singer expressing his true face in different outfits and make-up.
Note that I selected one layer among all possible layers we could create to separate the whole material into small parts.
Step 2: Set the overall mood for the image at the prompt
Here it is appropriate to start with the element with the most weight on our task: video.
In the case of Advice’s MV, “dark, gritty, compelling atmosphere, intricate details, rich colors, and posh settings” are some words we use to generate the image prompt.
Step 3: Refining mood and vibes
Mood and vibes are the heart and soul of an image. So when creating images, we must identify the emotions we want to evoke. Now, we can integrate music and video.
In the case of “Advice,” we want to create an image with dark, gritty, R&B, flourishes, and trap beats” that are featured prominently in the song to accentuate the sultry, edgy vibe of the song.
It’s crucial to play with colors to create the right mood. In the case of “Advice,” we can use “dark,” “moody,” and “rich” to characterize the colors of the music video because they reflect the song’s dark themes. Metallics, posh setting, and bold are other words that accentuate the sultry, edgy vibe of R&B and trap beats.
Step 4: Character description
It would be best to describe the character or object with fewer words because we want to give AI generator space to work with the other concepts we are inserting into the prompt.
Taemin, according to Perplexity, is a “high-fashion villain vibe.” This definition is perfect for understanding what he is trying to achieve.
Taemin’s thick eyeliner, chains, body painting, balaclava, and sneakers reflect the song’s message. They express the singer’s rebellious attitude to the crowd’s judgment of him.
If you try to add all those elements and describe how each item should look, the result will be much inferior to the effort you put into creating the prompt.
Here is what you should do: work with some elements each time and change them to determine which ones are relevant to creating the “mood” and which are dispensable.
Step 5: Bringing it All Together
Now that you have the meaning, the mood, and the character, it’s time to bring it all together.
Use Midjourney’s commands to generate images and refine them until you’re happy with the result. Feel free to experiment with different prompts, moods, and characters until you find the most appropriate fit.
Good practice: It’s best to keep prompts under 22 words and avoid exceeding 40 to ensure they are concise and easy to understand.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, your image creation process will become more efficient if you master mood using text-to-image AI tools like Midjourney. Because that way, you can create images that evoke emotions and convey a message with precision.
