How to Use Your Own Image as an AI Art Reference

The built-in reference library covers a lot of ground, but the upload button is where the generator becomes fully yours: any character image you have — your original character, an AI portrait you generated elsewhere, a commissioned artwork — can become the identity for every scene you generate next. The flow takes under a minute. What actually decides your results is the image you pick, so this guide covers the upload steps, the checklist for a reference that works, and the rules that apply to what you upload.

What counts as a good reference

The model extracts identity from your reference — face, hair, build, distinctive features — and carries it into every generation (the mechanics are covered in how reference-based generation works). It can only extract what it can see, so the checklist is about visibility:

Face clearly visible. Front-facing or three-quarter angle, no heavy shadows across the face, nothing covering it. The face is the highest-weight identity signal.

Sharp, not blurry. Compression artifacts and motion blur read as noise. If you squint to see detail, so does the encoder.

Good, even lighting. Dramatic single-side lighting looks great as art but hides half the identity. Save the dramatic light for the generated scene — it belongs in the prompt, not the reference.

Framed from the waist up or closer. A full-body shot where the face is 40 pixels tall gives the model almost nothing. Closer crops win.

One character only. Two people in frame split the identity signal unpredictably.

Style of the reference matters less than people expect: an anime artwork, a 3D render, or a painterly portrait all work. The reference sets who; your style preset sets how it is rendered.

The upload flow

The rules: read before uploading

This section is short and non-negotiable. Two categories are prohibited by the Acceptable Use Policy, and enforcement is not theoretical:

No real people. Do not upload photographs of real persons — celebrities, acquaintances, or anyone else. Generating imagery of real people without their consent is the bright line of this entire product category, and "it's just a reference" does not move the line. Use fictional characters, AI-generated faces, or artwork.

Nothing involving minors. No exceptions, no edge cases, no stylized ambiguity. This rule is absolute everywhere in the product.

Within those lines, you are free: original characters, AI portraits from any generator, commissioned art, your own drawings — all fair game.

Getting the most out of an uploaded reference

Treat the upload as the start of a character, not a one-off. The value of a custom reference compounds the same way it does for library characters: one identity across many scenes builds a coherent gallery — the full technique is in keeping a character consistent across scenes.

Two practical tips from that playbook. First, if your first few generations drift from the reference, the reference is usually the problem — run it back through the checklist above before blaming the prompt. Second, if you want a character but do not have an image yet, generate one: pick a built-in reference close to your idea, generate a portrait you like, and that output can serve as your next reference.