TL;DR
What did u/jadiana use Midjourney for?
A traditional artist fed their own work into Midjourney as image prompts for years, and now scrolls the archive for reference instead of weeks of thumbnail sketches. Instead of spending weeks on thumbnail work, magazines or journaling to find an idea, they scroll through the images they've produced and pick something to use as reference for their traditional art.
What they did
They used their own traditional work as image prompts and kept feeding results back in as prompts for later rounds, building "an entire stable of images" in their personal style. They now treat Midjourney as "my imagination machine."
How it went
Instead of spending weeks on thumbnail work, magazines or journaling to find an idea, they scroll through the images they've produced and pick something to use as reference for their traditional art.
Worth knowing
- They describe it as years of experimenting before they reached a result they consider their own art.
- Price check: Midjourney: no free plan; Basic: US$10/month, or US$8/month on a yearly plan (US$96/year) (checked Oct 25, 2026).
Try it yourself
Paste this into a chatbot, then add your own details underneath.
Use my attached painting as the image prompt. Keep its color palette, brushwork and mood, and give me four new compositions of [subject] I could use as reference for my next piece.
More people who did this
- u/HenryTudor7 (Reddit, Sep 22, 2026): Uses Midjourney to create reference images for real physical paintings.
- u/sannleikur (Reddit, Sep 24, 2026): Uses it for moodboards and lighting and color references, then runs any image a client likes through Magnific so it holds up on a big screen.
Original post
See u/jadiana's original post on Reddit → (Sep 22, 2026)
Sources
- u/jadiana on Reddit, Sep 22, 2026 — the original post
- Midjourney pricing — checked Oct 25, 2026