Create Custom Coloring Books with AI

By Jennifer Cerutti

Leonardo.ai

So why Leonardo.ai? It’s fairly easy and the free version is generous regarding the number of “tokens” provided to you daily. It’s easier than Midjourney and the results are pretty good. Leonardo is less frustrating than ChatGPT’s Dall-e (integrated with 4o). I’ve worked with all three and started with Midjourney in the Winter of 2023 and Leonardo in the Spring of 2023. Back then, Leonardo.ai had a very clumsy interface, but the image generation results I was getting with my free account were satisfactory. Since then, Leonardo has worked on improving the user interface and the quality of its models.

There is so much that can be done with Leonardo.ai, I am only scratching the surface of its capabilities. For this post, I will be concentrating on creating coloring book images using Leonardo.ai.

Generating a Coloring Book Image

If you want to write the prompt yourself, here are the elements that Leonardo recommends you use to ensure its a good prompt:

• Subject - Ex. Happy old lady
• Medium - Ex. Acrylic painting
• Style - Ex. Pop art
• Composition - Ex. Standing pose, off center, with a focus on facial expression
• Color and lighting - Ex. Low contrast, muted colors with harsh, direct lighting”

There are more great tips in Leonardo's article on writing prompts. I followed the above advice in my next prompt to generate some images. I think the results were pretty good. I wrote:

"A cute puppy, precise black line drawing for coloring pages, children's coloring book style, The puppy is playing with a ball"

Negative Prompting

The images contain grey shading which I can live with because the grey areas are not that dark and can be colored over… But if you don’t want this you may need to add some words to the negative prompt field like "grey, shading". Negative prompting must be turned on in the “Advanced Settings” menu located on the left side of the user interface.

When using the “Negative Prompt” feature, there is no need to use the word “No” when listing the attributes you don’t want. Then be sure to separate each item by a comma.

Sometimes you need to repeat words to emphasize their importance. I had to modify the negative prompts to “color, grey, shading, color, colors”. Before I got the final results. Although. I think the first generated set is cuter than the last. You may need to try a few things until you get the results you want and like. Patience and some experimentation is required.

AI Prompt Writing

It is also possible to have AI write a prompt for you by clicking on the Prompt Magic (stars) button next to the Generate button. There are a number of options, I chose “Improve Prompt". The AI generated prompt included color in its description. I removed that and a few other things that I didn't want. Unfortunately, the images generated have shading in greyscale again. Getting the results you want require trial and error. If you are planning to write your own prompts, or even use “Prompt Magic” it’s advisable to make changes to your prompts a little at a time. This will allow for you to see if your changes make a difference in getting the results you want. If the result is not what you want, it’s easy enough to change the prompt back and try something different.

Using Prewritten Prompts as a Starting Point

If you don’t have the time or patience to write and modify your own prompts you can use prewritten prompts and settings from other creators using leonardo.ai. There is a vast user library of “Community Creations” from which to draw inspiration. I scrolled through the “Community Creations” section on the home page for Leonardo.ai and found some cute coloring book images to try. I learned that it really matters which “finetuned model” you are using.

When borrowing other creators prompts using the “Generate with This Model” button, be sure to copy the prompt they used. The settings will remain the same but the prompt won’t populate. Combined with the settings in the image generation screen, I modified the subject of the prompt only. The style of most of the coloring book images in the Community Creations were of the Kawaii style.

Example

Negative Prompt: Color, Shading, Horn

Prompt: Black and white line art illustration featuring a cute, cartoon-style Pegasus with large, expressive eyes and a small, smiling mouth. The Pegasus has a pair of wings and a flowing mane and tail with wavy lines. It flies above a rainbow, surrounded by a whimsical magic swirls. Stars are scattered throughout the background, adding to the magical theme. The ground is adorned with various flowers and plants, drawn with intricate patterns and shapes. The overall composition is playful and enchanting, suitable for coloring activities.

I realize that I might not be able to get exactly what I want. But I have to be flexible at least until AI image generation improves more and I get better at writing prompts. Go ahead and give leonardo.ai a try.

Upload to Presto Photo

When you get some images that you are happy with, save them and upload your completed coloring book PDF to Presto Photo. You can also use our online designer to upload your images and make a book directly on our site. We offer coloring books in many sizes. Be sure to choose our Eggshell 150 paper at checkout! This paper is great for coloring with markers, pencils, crayons, and more!

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