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Avatar mode: casting and styling your AI characters

Cast, style and direct consistent AI characters: generate faces and outfits separately, set the scene, then combine them into one image.

4 min read
  • Create
  • Snippets
  • Avatar Generator
The avatar builder with an identity portrait, an outfit flat lay and a desert-tone colour snippet wired into one full-length result

When you create characters for a campaign or a film, there are a lot of decisions to make: the face, the age, the hair, the outfit, the colours, the location, the light.

With AI image generation, all of these usually end up in a single prompt, and changing one often changes the others. Avatar mode keeps them separate: you define the identity first, create the outfits on their own, then combine them.

Let’s go through a full example, from the first portrait to a character sheet you can reuse in other generations.

Casting: focus on faces first

In the Portrait submode, you define the identity of your character. The avatar builder has presets for each attribute: age, ethnicity, skin tone, hair and makeup. Pick them, then generate with several image models at once.

Each model gives a different take on the same description, so you can compare them side by side and keep the one you like.

One portrait brief, generated with four models at once.

The clothes in the portrait don’t matter. They’re not kept when you combine the character with an outfit.

Styling: create the outfits

The Outfit submode generates flat lays: all the pieces of an outfit laid out, ready to use on any character.

Here, one outfit snippet with the colours left as a variable gives three different outfits. You can also start from image references, or extract an outfit from any photo.

Three flat lays generated from one prompt: an outfit snippet, with the accent colours left as a variable.

Putting them together

Avatar Composer combines an identity and an outfit. The environment, lighting and framing come from snippets, like any other generation in Hylope.

A generated identity and flat lay, directed with environment, lighting and framing snippets.

Since the face and the outfit are separate, you can change one and keep the other: a new outfit on the same character, or the same outfit on someone else.

Learn how to create your own

The tutorial goes through each submode step by step, with the full video:

Photos and snippets as inputs

The inputs don’t have to be generated.

From a real photo

Here, the identity comes from a character snippet, and the outfit from a real photo.

The identity from a character snippet, the outfit from a real photo.

From snippets only

You can also use snippets only: a character, an outfit and a colour palette are enough to try ideas quickly.

Character, outfit and palette, all from snippets.

Changing the style

A style changes how the character is rendered. Here, the same identity and outfit as a fashion sketch, useful for a pitch deck or a first presentation.

The same kind of inputs with the Fashion Sketch style applied.

Keeping the character consistent

Character sheets

A character sheet shows your character from several angles in one image. You can then use it as a reference for new images: here, Chloe’s sheet with a framing and a lighting snippet gives a new shot of her on a tennis court.

Chloe's generated character sheet used as the reference for a new shot, directed with framing and lighting snippets.

Lineage

Every image keeps its lineage, so you can always see which portrait and which outfit it came from, and keep going with edits and upscales.

An identity and an outfit, generated separately, then combined and taken further.