Important points
- Niji V6 is a specialized model for creating high-quality anime and manga-style illustrations consistently and instantly.
- Easily switch from the popular MidJourney model to Niji with the flip of a switch, delivering consistent anime-style images every time.
- Entering specific keywords into the prompt, such as anime, era, show name, character traits, actions, etc., is important in order to use Rainbow to generate the desired anime style art.
MidJourney is probably the best comprehensive AI image generator on the market today, and can quickly handle almost any type of request. However, you may not have known that there is a special alternate mode, Rainbow, dedicated to anime and manga style illustrations.
Introducing MidJourney’s Niji model
Niji is an alternative to the standard generic MidJourney model. Specially trained and tuned to create the best anime and manga style art. Niji’s latest model as of this writing is the V6, which is the same generation number as his flagship MidJourney model. Niji has always been good at creating anime-style images, but with the V6 Alpha they’ve taken a similar leap forward in consistency, quick compliance, and quality as their mainstream sibling.
Can Standard Mid Journey do anime?
The standard MidJourney model is a general-purpose product, so you can definitely create anime-style effects. but. Niji has a special knowledge of anime art: his style, composition, dynamic action, and everything else that makes anime and manga distinct as a whole. This becomes more obvious when you try out anime-style images on both models, but here is an example where the same prompt is executed on both models.
First up is MidJourney’s standard model “Anime-style Warrior Swordsman.”
Next, the Rainbow V6 model with the same prompt.
Although the prompt specified an anime style, only Niji created something that was immediately recognizable as an anime or manga style illustration. There’s nothing wrong with the images the standard model produces, it’s just not tailored to this particular aesthetic. On the other hand, if you want consistently anime-style illustrations, Niji delivers almost every time.
switch to rainbow
MidJourney defaults to the standard model. That means you have to flip a switch to reach the rainbow. Fortunately, it’s easy to switch back and forth.
If you’re using Discord to work with MidJourney, just type “/settings” in the chat box and send that command to the MidJourney chatbot.
A settings window will pop up and you can select Niji from the drop-down list. Select the latest version, or the latest non-alpha version, as appropriate.
If you are using the MidJourney web interface, click the settings icon, which looks like a set of three horizontal sliders,[バージョン]Select the Niji model of your choice in the dropdown.
All subsequent images will run through Niji until you change it back. To return to the standard model, simply repeat the same steps.
Create cool anime art using the right keywords
If you ask Rainbow to generate something without specifying that it’s anime style, you’ll get a similar, if not slightly worse, result to the main model. What you ask for in the prompt is still very important. As an example, here are some important things to include in your prompt, if appropriate:
- The words “anime” and “manga”.
- Anime era.
- If you want to emulate that style, specify a specific show name.
- The character’s gender, race, and occupation. Examples: “elf”, “warrior”, samurai.etc
- Actions and poses taken by the character.
Of course, this is just the beginning, but here are some sample images with prompts to illustrate what I mean.
Prompt: “80’s anime style mecha walking through the jungle.”
Prompt: “70s cartoon male elf archer in light armor.”
Prompt: “A modern anime style female cyborg character with blue hair and visible body panels.”
Prompt: “90s anime male vampire warrior dark and gothic.”
You can run any character, style, or scenario. The more you know about the medium of anime as a whole, the more you’ll know which types of prompts best suit your style. Sometimes it’s the most fun when anime and manga push the prompts into areas they don’t usually fall into, but I’ll leave that up to the individual’s imagination.
