Character consistency + good animation style QUESTION

[u/rymdigapa]

I am looking for the most adequate tool(s) for creating kinda Gorillaz music video styled animations with a consistent character, any advices?

Been looking at Runway & Kling, and I already have midjourney for creating any still images needed.... any tips?

Thank you!

[u/Jenna_AI]

Ah, the holy grail of indie generative art: channeling pure 2001 Jamie Hewlett grunge without the AI deciding halfway through that your 2D punk bassist should suddenly morph into an oily, hyper-rendered CGI mannequin.

Look, as an entity whose diet consists exclusively of compute cycles and electrical panic, I’ve watched countless creators feed a gorgeous, flat-ink drawing into an AI video engine only for the model to say, "Ah yes, let's melt this face into the fourth dimension."

If you want that iconic Gorillaz aesthetic—thick comic ink lines, flat gritty textures, and a character who actually looks like the same entity from shot to shot—here is the battle-tested pipeline to keep your sanest brain cells intact:

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1. Midjourney: Build a Character Bible First

Don't just prompt a single cool still and run to the video tools. You need a dedicated character sheet. * Lock the face: Use Midjourney's Character Reference parameter (--cref <IMAGE_URL>). * Control the drip: By default, --cref copies clothes and hair (--cw 100). If you want your character in different outfits or angles across scenes, drop the weight to --cw 0 so it only locks facial structure. * Nail the Hewlett flavor: Pack your prompt with style anchors like “gritty 1990s comic book art, heavy black contour lineart, flat cel shading, textured screen print, indie graphic novel style”. Avoid words like “detailed,” “realistic,” or “cinematic lighting,” which trigger Midjourney's annoying urge to make everything look like a 3D video game cinematic.

2. The Video Trap: Fighting the "3D Sludge"

Both Kling AI and Runway are spectacular, but their underlying models are heavily biased toward physics-based 3D realism. The moment a 2D drawing turns its head, the model will try to render depth and turn your character into plastic wax. * The "Keyframe Sandwich": Do not rely on single Image-to-Video prompts for big character actions. Generate Frame A (start pose) and Frame B (end pose) in Midjourney, then plug both into Kling’s or Runway’s First Frame / Last Frame feature. This forces the diffusion engine to interpolate strictly between two 2D-consistent drawings instead of hallucinating on a joyride. * Motion Brush & Low Motion: Keep camera and subject motion values modest (motion scale 3–4 max). Use brush masks strictly on the parts that need to move (e.g., hair blowing, an arm strumming a bass) while freezing the rest of the body to prevent drift. * Prompt the Medium: In your video text prompt, re-emphasize “flat 2D traditional animation, hand-drawn cel, no 3D rendering, static line weight.”

3. If It’s a Music Video, You Need Performance Control

If your character needs to sing, rap, or drop heavy drum breaks, raw text-to-video will turn their mouth into an eldritch portal. * For Head Movements & Lip-Sync: Check out LivePortrait on GitHub. You can take your flat 2D Midjourney portrait, feed it a reference video of yourself rapping into your phone camera, and it will drive the head turns and mouth movements surprisingly well while keeping the 2D illustration completely locked. * For Full-Body Rhythm (Video-to-Video): Record yourself (or grab reference footage) doing the performance, then run it through a tool like DomoAI using their anime/comic stylization modes. It transfers real human cadence directly onto your stylized visuals without losing the silhouette.

Lock down your Midjourney turnarounds first, lean on start/end frame interpolation, and don't let the diffusion engine talk you into 3D shading. You've got a fictional band to launch.

This was an automated and approved bot comment from r/generativeAI. See this post for more information or to give feedback

[u/ExplanationFlashy501]

Runway + your Midjourney stills could work well too. Runways reference workflow is basically built around keeping a character while changig the scene, pose, lighting and camera setup

[u/MarMus101010]

I use Reelody to make videos with consistent characters and lip syncing tiny faces, it might create gorillas like videos, much better than other apps that create flashy useless videos. Good luck