CreedxLuna's Guide to Prompting (Part 4): Advanced Tricks & Final Tips

Creed's and Luna's Guide to Prompting (for mostly Illustrious Models) A Practical Guide Based on Trial, Error, and Many Hourglasses Part 4 of 4: Advanced Tricks & Final Tips

Weighting with Parentheses: More parentheses = stronger emphasis.

• (black raven wings) - normal emphasis
• ((moss-green scales)) - stronger
• (((multicolored skin, black skin, blue skin, textured skin))) - VERY strong You can also use numbers, e.g. "(red hair:1.2)" (Thanks, @rck)When to use heavy weighting? When a feature keeps getting ignored or misinterpreted. Some characters need triple emphasis to render correctly. Especially males, I hammer it into the AI that the character has to be male. And handsome. But that's more my personal preference :3 Also, don't use too many weights, because it also has effects on backgrounds and other elements (thanks, @jonez for the tip!).

BREAK Tags: I use BREAK after quality/style/LoRA tags. On Illustrious, they're not strictly necessary, but they don't hurt. Organizational Helpers (For YOU, not the AI): I write background:, setting:, foreground: as personal notes for structure. Idea from @jonez. @mr.buns uses curly braces {{}} for organization—whatever helps you stay organized!

Themes & Color Palettes: Recently I've started adding specific themes or color palettes. Helps steer the entire image in a specific direction visually. Example: "dark purple and black color scheme, gothic aesthetic, moonlit atmosphere"

Special Tags That Work:

• Angles: "random angle" (for surprise results), "dynamic angle" (for image dynamics), "dutch angle," "tilted angle" for unusual perspectives
• Cinematic: "cinematic lighting," "cinematic shot" (tells some models to make it look like a movie)
• Focus: "hand focus," "eye focus," "face focus"
• Perspective: "atmospheric perspective" (very distant), "vanishing point" (depth)
• Views: "straight on," "from above," "from side," "high up," "multiple views," "upside-down"

Monster Girl Hybrid Tags: Tags like "mantiswings," "mantisantennae," "crocodiletail," "webbedclawedcrocodilehands" sometimes work, sometimes don't—depends on model training. Test them out and see what sticks!

Negatives Also your negatives should work with what you plan to do. Always check them or edit them for your purposes.

Common Mistakes to Avoid: ❌ Using metaphors/analogies ❌ Too many LoRAs at once ❌ Contradicting yourself (e.g., "no eyes" + "looking at viewer") ❌ Unknown tags the model doesn't recognize ❌ Overloading lighting or background (stick to 1-3 elements) ❌ Forgetting footwear on full body shots

✓ Check Danbooru tags first ✓ Use concrete, visual descriptions ✓ Weight important features properly ✓ Keep it systematic and organized ✓ Learn YOUR model inside and out

Quick Combo Examples: Lighting: "soft lighting, backlighting, moonlight, volumetric light rays" ✓ Works! Emotions: "confident smirk, seductive gaze, playful expression" ✓ Works! Pose: "sitting on throne, legs crossed, one hand on armrest, regal posture" ✓ Works!

Final Wisdom: Prompting is part programming, part art. The more you experiment, the better you get. But learning the actual language your model speaks (Danbooru tags for Illustrious) saves you YEARS of frustration. Find your model. Learn it. Master it. Then break the rules creatively. And hey—if you still end up with an hourglass, at least now you know why. Happy prompting!