Illustration generation

The consistency problem

A single illustration is easy. A set of twelve in the same style is the hard problem. Research 10 + 15: prompt words drift; reference images do not. Any illustration skill must inject a brand style reference at every call.

Routing

Model	Brand lock mechanism	Best for
Flux Pro / Flux.2	`reference_images[]` (up to 8 in Flux.2) + brand LoRA	Photoreal, stylized 3D, brand illustration sets
SDXL + brand LoRA	trained LoRA (6d recipe, ~5k steps on 20 images)	Bespoke brand style, open-weight
Recraft V3	`style_id` (brand magic)	Flat vector, editorial illustration
Ideogram 3	style codes	Loose "same vibe" — not strict lock
Midjourney v6/v7	`--sref` / `--cref` / `--mref`	Concept work; no API, community wrappers only
`gpt-image-1`	`input_image[]`	Edit / composite flows

First illustration in a set is human-gated. Once approved, its style becomes the reference injected into all subsequent generations.