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Writer's pictureAustinitic Steel

DALL-E 2 D&D Intro 2: Armor and Weapons + Goblins

We all want to feel the breeze on our chests...but it's just not worth an OSHA violation to go adventuring without protective gear. Getting the correct outfit can be rather difficult. There's a lot of possible possible outfits you'll want your subject to wear. I'll be sharing prompts that result in the best outcomes. They're not prescriptive though so be sure to experiment.


We'll be going over the following:


6.1 Full Plate

6.2 Chain mail

6.3 Mixed plate and cloth

6.4 Scale mail

6.5 Hide armor

6.6 Leathers

6.7 Wizard's robes


These will all be using a medium shot to show you a fuller picture of the armor. Note that I highly recommend using out painting from a portrait shot to produce a final character picture. So don't get ahead of yourself here. We'll go over that process later. These examples will be useful then.

For brevity I will just leave all these here as examples. Some things you may notice in these prompts:

  • occasionally I use hashtags. This helps to emphasize elements in the prompt. Use these with caution as they can do unpredictable things to your generations.

  • Sometimes just describing the goblin's job is enough to produce the correct outfit/look.

  • Some job descriptions also naturally come with a prop. The knights seem to often come with swords.

Things I discovered while making these examples:

  • vests/jackets are easy to create out of other materials such as leather, animal hides, and scales.

  • Any time you say the word "armor" you are likely to get some metallic components in the outfit- especially pauldrons.

  • Dall-e has a lot of trouble drawing chainmail. You may want to consider some other form of post processing if you want chain mail. In-fact, I had to remove "fantasy" from chain mail so that it would come out clearly.

  • "Goblin" is disrupting the outputs here. They normally are drawn with very simple clothing on and not with armor. Having a more human subject is going to improve a lot of these. Just saying "human paladin" for instance may put it in full shining plate armor.

6.1 --- Full Plate

prompt: A goblin paladin in armor, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin knight in shining armor, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin knight in armor, #sleek, #reflective, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.2 --- Chain Mail


prompt: A goblin warrior wearing medieval chainmail, #chainmail, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.3 --- Demi-plate

prompt: A goblin knight, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.4 --- Scale Mail

prompt: A goblin wearing a vest decorated with overlapping scales, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation



prompt: A goblin wearing a jacket decorated with overlapping scales, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.5 --- Hide Armor

prompt: A goblin wearing an animal hide vest, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin wearing an animal hide jacket, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.6 --- Leather Armor

prompt: A goblin wearing a leather vest, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





prompt: A goblin warrior wearing leathers, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin wearing a studded leather vest, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin wearing a leather jacket, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





prompt: A goblin wearing a leather coat, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




6.7 --- Wizard's robes

prompt: A goblin wizard, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




prompt: A goblin wearing wizard robes, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Bonus: Rogue outfit

The above outfits should pretty much get you where you need. Normal clothes that you would see on a person are fairly straightforward so I wont cover them here. In the meantime enjoy this goblin rogue.


prompt: A goblin rogue, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation




7. Weapons


Weapons are fairly straight forward. Mostly you just can't put guns in dall-e. We'll cover the following:

7.1 Sword

7.2 Knives

7.3 Sword and Shield

7.4 Long Bow

7.5 Compound Bow

7.6 Spear

7.7 Axe

You should know that most AI has trouble putting things in hands. Expect to use multiple generations and edits to get the right look.


7.1 ---- Sword

prompt: A goblin knight, holding a sword, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Dall-e likes tryin to fit everything in the frame of the picture so it sometimes shortens swords. Here it shortens the sword to a knife in #1. Also dall-e is not always so certain anout which direction the sword should be, hence #3.


7.2 ---- Knives

prompt: A goblin rogue holding knives, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Likewise, dall-e is not very good with size and knives will sometimes come out very large. Note that "dagger" basically doesn't work.


7.3 ---- Sword and Shield

prompt: A goblin knight with a shield, holding a sword, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Asking for a sword with a shield will sometimes not work. One of them will sometimes overpower the other. I suggest making one and then inediting the other.


7.4 ---- Long Bow

prompt: A goblin holding a long bow, wearing an animal hide vest, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Dall-e does not really like giving goblins bows. Understandable. I wouldn't want to give them bows either. Maybe let's try compound bows.


7.5 ---- Compound Bow

prompt: A goblin holding a compound bow, #goblin, #bo wandarrow, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Whoops these are elves. I even added #goblin and it still didn't want to make them goblins. They all have green arms though. You can use this when you're outpainting form a portrait shot of a goblin.


7.6 ---- Spear

prompt: A goblin paladin in armor holding a spear, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Dall-e is not good with spears. The spear in #4 makes sense but otherwise none of them look too good. Good thing spears aren't too popular in d&d. Maybe that's why there weren't too many in the database?


7.7 ---- Axe

prompt: A goblin warrior holding an axe, #goblin, medium shot, by Michael Whelan, fantasy, digital art, highly detailed, trending on artstation





Axes sometimes come out very small. Adding in a military job will help make them bigger. Still #2 is a little small.


This is a small sampling of all the weapons you can make. Remember to use hashtags to reinforce your monster when a weapon or outfit overpowers it.


--------------------------------- Disclaimer:

My personal belief is that AI art should be primarily for enjoyment. Please support art and artists and furthermore write to your senators about protecting the arts through subsidies, tax breaks for working artists and for laws that protect the jobs of artists. It will not be so easy to change the pose of your characters through dall-e. Consider paying an artist for a commission of that character.

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