A great way to get started with AI art is to explore different prompts. Prompts are what you use to describe the image you want to create, and they include lots of different information; from specific artist names and art styles to referencing pop culture icons and exploring surreal landscapes.

Try using the prompts listed below, then experiment with replacing the keywords with different ideas of your own. Soon enough you will get the hang of generating unique AI art by creating your own original prompts.

AI Art Categories

AI art generators do a great job at recreating all the kinds of human art styles that we have invented over time. The examples we cover here won't be exhaustive, of course, but we do think they offer a great place to start. To give you a broad overview, we've divided the prompts into the following sections:

  • In The Style of a Well-Known Artist
  • Pop Culture
  • Art Styles
  • Portraits
  • Fantasy Landscapes
  • Architecture
  • Creatures
  • Patterns, Shapes, and Geometric Design

Our examples were created with DALL-E, but you can compare DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion to find the ultimate AI art generator that works for you.

In the Style of a Well-Known Artist

Referencing the masters of art history is a great place to begin if you are stuck for ideas. The simplest prompt structure is to describe a subject or scene, followed by the phrase "in the style of". As for what artist you choose to use, start with a popular historical figure and go from there.

It also works on living artists if they are particularly renowned, but this has caused a lot of problems so far, leading some artists to opt out of AI training databases. We recommend sticking to non-living artists to avoid potential copyright issues that may occur in the future.

1. Frida Kahlo

Prompt: Portrait of a girl next to a capybara, in the style of a Frida Kahlo painting.

An AI generated portrait of a girl holding a capybara

2. Rene Magritte

Prompt: Man with a cowboy hat, in the style of Rene Magritte.

A man in a suit, his face covered by a cow boy hat

3. Tamara de Lempicka

Prompt: A woman with red hair in the style of Tamara de Lempicka.

Portrait of a red hair woman in the style of Tamara de Lempicka

Pop Culture

Another fun prompt to try is picking a pop culture icon as your subject. Try thinking of some of your favorite movie characters, comic heroes, or video game protagonists; then add a few key descriptors to set the scene.

4. Godzilla

Prompt: Godzilla figurine set against a miniature city, stop-motion.

AI-generated image of Godzilla figurine set against a city

5. Pikachu

Prompt: Pikachu, cinematic, digital art.

Digital art of Pikachu generated with Dall-E

6. Batman

Prompt: Batman, cinematic lighting, high resolution 3D render.

Dramatic digital art of Batman generated with Dall-E

7. Storm Trooper

Prompt: Storm trooper in the desert, high-detail, dramatic lighting, digital art.

Four images of a Storm Trooper in the desert, genearted with Dall-E

Art Styles

AI art is a great place to explore different art styles. Some styles, like "Ukiyo-e" and "Oil painting", will give your images a classic fine arts look. Using the keyword "Unreal Engine 5", the name of a game development software, will produce modern images closer to video game concept art.

Over time, you'll discover the art styles that you enjoy the most, and with a few extra tips and tricks for creating better AI art, you can start producing great AI-generated images.

8. Still Life Watercolor

Prompt: A still life watercolor painting of a hamburger on a table, a window in the background, soft afternoon light.

AI-generated image of a hamburger on a table in the style of still life watercolor paintings

9. Retro Illustration

Prompt: Retro vector illustration of a neon city skyline.

AI-generated image of a skyline in retro colors

10. Ukiyo-e

Prompt: Ukiyo-e print of two women visiting a shrine.

An Ukiyo-e style image of two japanese woman, generated with Dall-E

11. Unreal Engine 5

Prompt: Cyberpunk style city street at night, unreal engine 5.

Four images of a cyberpunk style city street, generated with Dall-E

12. Oil Painting

Prompt: Oil painting of a cottage near a pond, spring time.

An oil painting of a cottage by a pond, generated with Dall-E

Portraits

The portrait format is fantastic for executing simple but effective ideas. You can get creative by substituting animals for humans or describing a fictional species.

Borrowing concepts from creative self-portrait ideas in photography will help broaden your prompt vocabulary. In general, learning the terminology used in different artistic mediums helps to boost the number of keywords you have in your prompt crafting toolkit.

13. Animal Portrait

Prompt: Portrait of a Siamese cat wearing a robe, Chinese watercolor painting.

A siamese cat in a robe, generated with Dall-E

14. Sci-Fi Portrait

Prompt: Portrait of a smiling cyborg woman, peaceful, digital art.

Portrait of a cyborg in the style of digital art, generated with Dall-E

15. Human Portrait

Prompt: Victorian era portrait of an old man wearing a hat, photorealistic.

Photorealistic portrait of a man in a hat, generated with Dall-E

Fantasy Landscapes

Adding "fantasy" to your prompt is a fast way of generating art reminiscent of magical tales, set in medieval castles or beautiful ancient forests. We explored a few different themes around this idea, including nature, the Medieval period, and surrealism.

If you like the results, you can try using the outpainting feature in DALL-E to extend the image past its borders by generating new panels that blend with the existing image.

16. Nature

Prompt: Cottage overgrown with ancient trees, high-fantasy, digital art.

A cottage in a tree in the style of fantasty art, generated with Dall-E

17. Medieval

Prompt: Medieval German castle, surrounded by mountains, high fantasy, epic, digital art.

Four images of a medieval castle with mountains in the background, generated with Dall-E

18. Surreal

Prompt: Snail house on top of a cliff, surreal, fantasy, digital art.

A surreal image of snail house on a cliff, generated with Dall-E

Architecture

Using AI to generate architectural art and 3D renders is rather satisfying. You can play around with world-building pixel cottages or reimagine what a famous landmark would look like in a different setting. Play around with texture, color, lighting, and materials to shape the buildings and give them added life.

19. Pixel Art

Prompt: A cabin in the woods, isometric pixel art, 64x64, digital art, forest in the background, deer in the foreground.

Three pixel art images of a cabin in the woods created using Dall-E

20. Architectural Renders

Prompt: A photorealistic rendering of an architectural modernist 3 story home, made of concrete, merging with a rocky mountain side, artificially illuminated, soft warm evening.

Three AI images of architectural renders created using Dall-E

21. Famous Landmarks Reimagined

Prompt: A photorealistic render of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, covered in overgrown vines, low-light, evening.

An AI generated image of the Louvre in Paris created with Dall-E

Creature Creation

We can only hope that Dungeons and Dragons players around the world are testing out AI generators because they are fantastic places to put character designs to the test. Mocking up NPCs and bosses for a video game concept is another practical use for them too, especially if you lack the art skills but are nonetheless a dedicated game developer.

22. Alien

Prompt: Digital art fine detailed illustration of an alien reaching out a hand, floating in space.

AI-generated image of an alien reaching a hand out in space

23. H.P. Lovecraft

Prompt: A lovecraftian monster with a squid head and human body, color sketch, haunting low light, red and blue accents, rough texture.

AI generated Dall-E sketch of a lovecraft monster with a squid head and human body

24. Video Game Monsters

Prompt: An ugly ogre with gray-green pocked skin, inspired by Dark Souls, Unreal Engine 5 3D render, black background, disgruntled.

An AI-generated image of a green ogre with textured skin created using Dall-E

Patterns, Shapes, and Geometric Designs

Repeating patterns and kaleidoscopic shapes are perfect areas to explore with an AI art generator. Color choice is a fun parameter to play with here; you can try different color palettes or specify the foreground or background colors to create something striking.

25. Fractal Art

Prompt: Fractal art, spiraling, pastel color palette, digital art.

AI generated image of fractal art made using Dall-E

26. Ferrofluid

Prompt: Black hyper glossy ferrofluids, light pink background.

AI-generated image of black ferrofluid on a piank background made using Dall-E

27. Generative

Prompt: Hands, generative art, large-scale repetition, 3D render, multi-colored.

AI-generated image of colorful hands in a generative art style made using Dall-E

Trying New AI Prompts

The art prompts above are just a few examples to help you get started creating art with AI image generators. After trying out a few prompts, you can experiment with the descriptions by replacing keywords or subjects with ideas of your own. Before long, you will build a bank of words, phrases, and ideas to help you create stunning and original AI art.