A character is a person you want to see again and again: the face of a campaign, a mascot, a founder, a model from a shoot. You build them once from photos, details or a description, Wildfield draws a portrait and two character sheets, and from then on you can add them to any image you generate by name. The same face, hair and outfit come back in every scene and every format, instead of a new stranger each time you press Generate.
Characters belong to the design system, next to the palette and the fonts, so every project for that brand can use them, and switching design system swaps the whole cast.
#Create a character
Open Input mode and find the Characters section, below the text styles. Press + Add Character and a board opens:
- Type a Name. It is how you pick the character later, and it goes into the prompt, so a real first name reads better than "model 2".
- Press Add photos, or drag images from your desktop onto the board. Each photo becomes a card you can click to see full screen, or remove with its cross.
- Fill in the Details column on the right (see below). Every field is optional, and every field you fill is one less thing the model has to guess.
- Optionally, write a Prompt for anything the details and photos do not say.
- Press Generate sheet.
You need a name, and at least one of: a photo, a detail, or a prompt. With no photos at all, the details and prompt describe the person, which is a quick way to invent a character for a concept. Close the board at any time and what you have is saved: the character appears as a card in the section, with its portrait (or, before it has one, its first photo) and the name. Click a card to open it again, or its cross to delete it.
Delete asks first. After you confirm, a message such as "Deleted Mara. Undo" shows for 8 seconds, and Undo brings the character back with everything it had.
Characters are saved on the design system, so you need edit access to that design system to add or change them.
Photos and their roles
Every photo on the board has a role, chosen from the menu on its card:
- Identity: the person themselves. Use clear, well lit photos of the face.
- Clothing: an outfit they should wear. The design and colours are kept.
- Shoes: footwear, kept as pictured.
- Accessory: a bag, a watch, glasses, a product they hold. Its shape and details are kept.
New photos start as Identity. Change the role on anything that is not the person, so a photo of a jacket dresses the character instead of being read as their face. When photos go to the image model, the first Identity photo leads, then the first photo of each other role, then the rest.
Details
The Details column holds what the character looks like, in words the model reads every time:
- Details: role, age, height, body type, personality, face shape, eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, skin, hair and makeup.
- Distinctive marks: scars, tattoos, piercings, freckles, a shaved side. Each mark has a side (Left, Right, Both, Centre). Pick it: one-sided details are what flip between views, and the side goes into every prompt.
- Outfit: one row per garment, shoe or accessory, with its material and colour as a hex code (for example #D9A21B). The colour swatch shows next to the code.
- Sheet panels: which panels to draw. Profile, Turnaround, Face, Costume and Palette are on by default; Expressions and Poses are off.
#Portrait and sheets
Generate sheet draws the character in three images, each at 2K on a white background:
- The portrait: one front-facing head-and-shoulders photograph on plain white, drawn from the photos and the details. It is the character's thumbnail (on its card, on the + Character chip and at the top of the board) and the face everything else is drawn from. Click it to see the full 2048 px file.
- The character sheet: a profile with signature colours, a full-body turnaround (front, 3/4, side and back), the palette with hex codes and, if you turned it on, six poses.
- The detail sheet: large face views (front, 3/4 and profile) with facial notes, a close-up of every outfit item, and, if you turned it on, eight expressions. It is drawn with the character sheet attached, so it shows the same person in the same outfit.
Both sheets are drawn from the portrait, so they show its face. The board shows each sheet whole, at its own shape; click one to see it full screen.
The status line counts the images as they are drawn ("Drawing the portrait (1/3)") and says what was saved when they are in. The first Generate sheet spends credits for three images: the portrait and the two sheets. After that, pressing Generate sheet again keeps the portrait and redraws only the sheets, two images, so the face stays the same. To change the face, tick New portrait next to the button: the portrait is drawn again first, three images. With only character-sheet panels or only detail-sheet panels picked, there is one sheet less. If the portrait fails, nothing else is drawn; if one sheet fails, the other is kept and the status line names the one that did not come back.
The portrait and sheets are what a scene generation uses to recognise the character, so they are worth getting right. If something is off, change the photos, their roles, the details or the prompt, and generate again.
If you change the details after the sheets were drawn, the board says so. Until you generate again, scenes keep the face and take the outfit from the details.
Characters made before portraits had four stills (Front, Side, Back and Close-up). Their Front still is now their portrait (the Close-up if there is no Front), and the other stills are no longer shown or used. Their files are kept.
#Another outfit
A character has one outfit. For a second look, open the character and press Duplicate: the copy has every photo, detail and the sheets, saves next to the original, and opens with its name selected. Rename it (for example "Mara, winter"), change its Outfit rows or Clothing photos, and press Generate sheet. The original is untouched.
#Cast a character in a scene
Characters join an image in the Generate Image panels: the Retouch tab's GenAI section and the Generate Image controls on the Canvas layer panel.
- Press + Character under the prompt and pick a name from the list. It shows as a chip; click the chip to take them out again. Pick two or more for a group shot.
- Write the prompt as usual, about what the person is doing, and generate.
+ Character and + Object are always there, whether Advanced is on or off. Advanced only adds its own settings (camera, shot size, lens, style and lighting on the Canvas panels, layout guidance in the Retouch tab); the cast goes with the image either way.
The picks belong to the project, so they stay selected as you move between scenes and formats, and they come back when you reopen it. A character you create while a project is open is picked for it straight away. To make a scene without the cast, take their chips out first; Generate sends whoever is picked.
#Add an object
For a product, a pack shot or a prop that has to look exactly right, press + Object beside + Character and pick one or more photos. Each one uploads and shows as a small card with its file name under it; the corner x takes it out again. Full-size phone photos are fine: anything over 4 MB goes straight to storage instead of through the app's server.
The model is told to include the exact object, keeping its shape, colours, materials, branding, labels and readable text, and not to copy the photo's background or lighting. Write the prompt about where the object goes ("on the table beside her", "held up to the camera").
Objects belong to the project, not the design system: they stay as you move between scenes and formats and come back when you reopen it, and another project starts with none. A project takes up to six. Like characters, they are sent with Advanced on or off, but only when a new image is generated, not when you edit one.
Every image model has a limit on how many pictures it takes with a prompt, from 3 to 16. When the scene image, the characters and the objects add up to more, characters and objects take turns, so each keeps its first picture, and a toast says how many were used.
When characters are attached, Wildfield adds their names and their details (look, marks and outfit) to the prompt, and sends their pictures as references: the portrait, then the character sheet and the detail sheet when the character has them, else its photos. The portrait goes because it is the one face the sheets were drawn from, as a clean full-size photo. The clothing, shoes and accessory photos go too, marked as things to wear or carry. The scene is told the portrait is for the face and the sheets are reference boards, so it draws one photograph, not another sheet. The scene's current image, if it has one, goes first so the composition holds. If you pick a model that can only take one reference, Wildfield switches to one that takes several.
How many references
Each character sends at most 6 references, and one image takes at most 12 across all characters. A character with sheets sends its portrait, the two sheets and then its item photos; one with only a portrait sends it and its item photos; one with neither sends up to 6 of its photos, main picture first. With several characters, they take turns, so everyone keeps their main picture. The same limit of 6 applies to the photos used to draw the portrait and the sheets. When some had to be left out, the status line says so after the generation, for example "Used 12 of 15 references."
Ideas
- Shoot or pick three clear photos of your brand's face, generate the portrait and sheets once, and use them for a whole season of social ads.
- Give a character a signature item (a red cap, a branded tote) as an Outfit row with its hex colour and an Accessory photo, so the sheet, and every scene made from it, carries it without prompting for it.
- Invent a character from a prompt alone for a pitch, then replace them with real photos once the client casts someone.
- Make two characters and pick both for a "friends" scene, then drop one for the solo close-ups.
- Dress the same person for a new season: Duplicate them, change the Outfit rows, and generate the new sheet.
#Where characters live
The character list is part of the design system. Every project on that design system sees the same characters, and teammates with access to the design system can use them too. A project only stores which characters it has picked, so deleting a character removes it from every project's picks as well. Undo on the delete message puts it back, and picks it again in the project you deleted it from.
Switching design system shows that brand's characters instead. A character cannot be moved to another brand's design system; to use the same person for two brands, create them in each.
For how the rest of an image is generated, the models, the prompt chips and the brand's global prompt, see AI images. For design systems themselves, see Design systems.