Beyond Broken: Mastering Kintsugi AI Portraits
Kintsugi (金継ぎ), or "golden joinery," is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. In the world of AI art—whether you are using Midjourney V6, DALL-E 3, or Stable Diffusion—this concept translates into stunning, emotionally resonant portraits where the "flaws" become the most beautiful part of the image.
But how do you move beyond generic results? How do you stop the AI from just putting random lines on a face? Here is the professional breakdown to ranking your art higher in quality.
1. The Materiality Matters
Most beginners make the mistake of just typing "kintsugi face." The AI needs to know what is broken. Is the skin acting like porcelain, marble, or obsidian?
Pro Tip: Use words like "tactile," "fine grain," and "subsurface scattering" to make the material look realistic rather than like a cheap filter.
2. Controlling the Fracture
You want the gold cracks to follow the contours of the face naturally. In our generator above, we use specific weighting to ensure the cracks highlight features like the cheekbones and jawline, rather than obscuring the eyes randomly.
3. Midjourney Consistency (--cref)
One of the biggest questions we get is: "Can I make myself into Kintsugi art?" using AI. The answer is yes. In Midjourney, use the --cref URL parameter.
Simply upload your photo to Discord, copy the link, and paste it at the end of the prompt generated above. This tells the AI to use your facial structure while applying the ceramic/gold texture map over it.