Coastal lifestyle hero: golden hour with the dog.
The brand cover shot. Woman, golden retriever, headland, Kodak Portra 400. Full prompt + character ref instructions.
Five prompts. One reference set. Zero filler.
Slow-morning interior: kitchen window light.
The journal-post atmospheric shot. Linen, ceramic, soft window haze. Works for any quiet-morning brand.
Charlie portrait: character consistency reference.
How I keep a generated dog recognisably himself across every shoot. The reference set, the rules, the seed.
Coast atmosphere: empty headland at dawn.
The mood-stock shot. Eucalyptus, salt mist, sand, a single track in the dirt. No people. Just place.
Detail shot: hands, ceramic, paw, small light.
The close-crop that makes a feed feel intimate. Five variations + the lens settings I use for each.
Character ref + colour-palette lock.
A 2-page guide to the reference system that keeps Maya looking like Maya: wardrobe palette, scene archetypes, lighting rules, and the --sref codes I lock to.
Prompt one, in full.
editorial photograph, woman in oat linen and a white cotton tee walking a golden retriever along a quiet headland path, australian coast, low golden-hour sun behind, eucalyptus on the right, salt haze, shot on 35mm film, kodak portra 400, shallow depth of field, --ar 4:5 --style raw --cref [maya-ref] --sref [coast-style]
Three things doing the heavy lifting: cref locks the character (Maya's face, hair, body), sref locks the look (coastal palette, light), and kodak portra 400 does roughly 70% of the colour science. The full sampler explains how to build your own cref + sref pair.
Quick answers.
Do I need Midjourney to use these?
Recommended. All five prompts are tuned for Midjourney v6+. The full sampler also includes Flux/ComfyUI variants for anyone running locally.
Can I use these for my own brand?
Yes. The prompts are starting points, not Maya's signature recipes. Replace the cref/sref placeholders with your own character and style references and you have a coastal-lifestyle aesthetic ready to brand.
Are the actual Maya and Charlie character weights included?
No. The Maya and Charlie character weights are proprietary and stay private, they're the moat. The sampler teaches you how to build your own equivalents.
What if I want more?
The full How Maya is Made Prompt Pack ($29) has 30+ prompts and the full reference system. The Charlie Series ($19) is the deep dive on character consistency. Both in the shop.
Five Prompts. One Reference Set.
step into the studio.
The starting kit, free.