When I start a character with only a mood or aesthetic, I find it useful to add a few story constraints before asking for visual ideas. Otherwise the result can look polished but tell me very little about who the character is.
Here is a brief you can adapt:
Design an original character for a quiet coastal mystery. They repair old radios and are searching for a missing friend. Give them one recognizable silhouette, a practical outfit suited to wet weather, and one small object that hints at their history. Suggest three visual directions that share these core details, and explain what changes between them. Avoid copying a named character or artist.
I would keep the fixed details short and change just one thing at a time: the silhouette, the palette, or the relationship between the character and their object. That makes it easier to compare variations instead of losing the original idea in a pile of unrelated images.
If you're working from a photo, use one you have permission to use and decide which traits should carry through before generating anything. A reference sheet can then document the choices you actually want to keep.
I'm building Zoivu around this kind of character development workflow. The brief above is an example to adapt, not a claim about a particular model's output. What constraints do you find most useful when a character concept starts feeling generic?
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