Leonardo AI Prompt Examples for Fantasy Game Art: Tips + Best Practices

Sam is a solo developer in Manchester building a card-based dungeon crawler for PC. He has a 40-card prototype, placeholder art from free packs, and a Steam page deadline in six weeks. He is not trying to replace an artist; he wants consistent concept art, mood boards and placeholder card illustrations to test ideas before commissioning final work. These Leonardo AI prompt examples for fantasy game art are written for that situation: coherent, specific and designed for iteration.

If you are an indie developer, tabletop designer or concept artist, this guide shows what a strong brief looks like, with the prompts already filled in.

Where Leonardo fits

Leonardo is a generative image platform with a choice of models, aspect ratios, negative prompts, image-to-image guidance, upscaling and editing tools. The exact models, tools, credit limits and licence terms change, so check the tool's current features, limits and licence terms, especially before shipping art in a commercial game. Some platforms (for example Steam) also have disclosure requirements for AI-generated content; check the store's current rules.

Honest strengths: fast concept exploration, mood and palette studies, props and environment ideas. Honest limits: consistent characters across many images is hard, hands and weapons often break, text in images is unreliable, and results can drift stylistically between sessions.

Avoid imitating living artists, real people, or trademarked characters and worlds. Describe style through technique, lighting and palette instead.

If you also want a mobile-game take on the same workflow, see Artbreeder prompts for mobile game concept art.

Prompt formula

Subject + role in game + pose/action + environment + art style (technique) + lighting + palette + camera/framing + aspect ratio + negative prompt. Add "game-ready" requirements: readable silhouette, plain background for cutouts, or reserved space for card text.

Character concepts

Fantasy character art prompts

Prompt 1: Hero silhouette sheet

Character concept, full body, a weathered dwarven shieldbearer for a dark-fantasy card game, three-quarter view, standing neutral pose, plain mid-grey background. Details: heavy riveted iron shield with a worn chipped rim, quilted gambeson in faded red, leather straps, short braided beard with iron rings, tired but resolute expression. Painterly digital illustration with visible brush texture, soft top-left key light, muted palette of rust red, steel grey, olive and aged bone. Strong readable silhouette, centred, full figure visible head to boots. Aspect ratio 2:3 portrait. Negative: extra limbs, extra fingers, blurry face, text, watermark, modern items, cropped feet, busy background, logo.

Why it works: The plain background and silhouette requirement produce usable concept references. "Role in game" keeps the design consistent with the genre.

What to expect / check: Hands, shield rims and straps often warp. Zoom to 100% and check anatomy before you show anyone.

Iterate: "Keep the character but change the shield to a tower shield with a simple embossed ram emblem and make the gambeson dark green."

Prompt 2: Villain with narrative detail

Fantasy villain concept art: a gaunt moth-cult priestess in a ruined chapel, waist-up portrait, slight low angle, pale moonlight from a broken window casting blue light on one side of the face, deep shadow on the other. Robes of tattered grey linen decorated with embroidered moth wings in dull silver thread, a lantern with a cold green flame in her left hand. Painterly, high contrast, moody but readable. Palette: slate blue, bone white, sickly green, charcoal. Aspect ratio 3:4. Negative: gore, blood, extra fingers, deformed hands, text, watermark, modern clothing, cartoon style.

Why it works: Specific lighting, embroidery detail and a narrative prop give a memorable design while the negative prompt removes the cheap "horror" shortcuts.

What to expect / check: Lanterns and flames often merge with hands. Re-roll or edit the hand area.

Iterate: "Make the face older and more weary, reduce the green glow to 50%, and remove the chapel windows from the background."

Environments

Fantasy environment prompts for game levels

Prompt 3: Dungeon corridor for a level mood board

Environment concept art, a narrow flooded dungeon corridor beneath an old fortress, one-point perspective looking down the corridor, ankle-deep water reflecting two wall-mounted torches, mossy stone arches, a collapsed section of ceiling half-blocking the far end. Lighting: warm flicker from torches against a cold blue ambient. Painterly style with visible brushwork, atmospheric haze, strong depth. Palette: teal shadows, amber highlights, moss green. Aspect ratio 16:9. Negative: characters, text, modern objects, watermark, oversaturated colours, lens flare, cartoonish proportions.

Why it works: One-point perspective and two clear light sources give structure, which helps level designers read the space.

What to expect / check: Architecture can be inconsistent. Use it for mood and palette, then build your own blockout.

Iterate: "Same corridor but narrower, with a side alcove on the left containing a stone sarcophagus, and no torch on the right wall."

Prompt 4: Biome variation

Environment concept art, a high alpine pass in a fantasy realm at dawn, a winding stone path with ancient waystone markers, wind-bent pines, a distant ruined watchtower on a ridge, low clouds filling the valley. Style: stylised painterly digital art, soft atmospheric perspective, large readable shapes for a top-down-friendly game map. Palette: cool lavender mist, pale gold sunrise, deep evergreen. Aspect ratio 3:2. Negative: people, animals, text, watermark, harsh outlines, photographic look, neon colours.

Why it works: Shapes "readable at small size" matter for game maps and thumbnails.

What to expect / check: Watch for repeated textures; they can indicate tiling issues.

Iterate: "Same scene at dusk, with a thin stream and a single campfire on the path."

Props, icons and cards

Props and card art prompts

Prompt 5: Relic prop on plain background

Game prop concept, a cracked obsidian amulet on a thin silver chain, a faint ember glow in the crack, centred on a plain neutral grey background, slight three-quarter top-down view, studio-style soft lighting with a subtle rim light. Painterly stylised realism, clean edges for easy cutout, palette of black, silver and deep ember orange. Square 1:1. Negative: hands, text, extra objects, shadows on the background, watermark, gemstone clutter.

Why it works: Plain background and soft lighting make props easy to isolate and reuse in a UI.

What to expect / check: Chains often tangle. Remove them if they look wrong.

Iterate: "Remove the chain, make the amulet slightly larger within the frame, and give the glow a warmer, slower falloff."

Prompt 6: Card illustration with text space

Card illustration for a fantasy dungeon crawler: a lone ranger drawing a bow beside a stone bridge at night, wide composition with the subject on the right third, the left half of the image left deliberately darker and less busy to hold card text. Painterly, rich shadows, moonlight from upper left, subtle mist. Palette: indigo, pale silver, muted green. Aspect ratio 4:3. Negative: text, frame, border, watermark, extra limbs, modern items, flat lighting.

Why it works: It designs for the end use (card layout) instead of only the picture.

What to expect / check: Bows and hands often fail. Re-roll or choose a stance without a visible bowstring grip.

Iterate: "Make the ranger smaller in frame and push the bridge further back."

Prompt 7: UI icon set

A sheet of six fantasy RPG ability icons on a plain dark background, arranged in a 3x2 grid with equal spacing: flame burst, frost shard, healing leaf, iron shield, poison flask, wind gust. Each icon in a rounded-square badge, hand-painted style with bold readable shapes, subtle inner glow, consistent lighting from top-left. Palette per icon: one dominant colour and gold trim. Negative: text, numbers, extra icons, photographic look, thin details that disappear at 64px.

Why it works: The "readable at 64px" clause is a real UI constraint.

What to expect / check: Test at the actual in-game size.

Iterate: "Redraw the poison flask with a simpler silhouette and make the gold trim thinner."

Planning and consistency prompts (text tools)

Prompt 8: Style bible

I am making a dark-fantasy card dungeon crawler. Here are my best 3 prompts and what I like about each: [PASTE]. Write a reusable style block of at most 70 words that I can paste at the start of every prompt to keep results consistent, covering technique, lighting, palette, mood and negative terms. Do not mention any living artist or existing game.

Why it works: A shared style block is the best tool for consistency across a card set.

What to expect / check: Test the block on three different subjects to see if it holds.

Iterate: "Shorten it to 45 words and drop any term that did not influence the three sample outputs."

Prompt 9: Card set planner

Plan a 12-card starter set for a dungeon crawler with 4 heroes, 4 enemies, 2 relics and 2 locations. For each card give: name, role in play, a 25-word visual description for an illustrator, a suggested aspect ratio and a note on what must stay consistent. Keep names original and avoid trademarked fantasy names or creatures from existing franchises.

Why it works: It converts a vague set into briefs for each illustration.

What to expect / check: Check names against trademarks and existing games.

Iterate: "Rewrite the four enemy briefs so they share a visual motif I can reuse as a family look."

Prompt 10: Commission brief from concept

Turn these AI concept images and notes into a one-page brief for a human illustrator: [PASTE DESCRIPTIONS]. Include mood, palette, silhouette goals, must-haves, must-not-haves, final deliverable sizes and licence expectations (full commercial rights, no AI-generated content in the final). Keep it neutral, professional and under 350 words.

Why it works: Concept art is most valuable when it helps you hire a human or finalise work.

What to expect / check: Add your real budget, deadline and file formats.

Iterate: "Add a section listing three questions the illustrator should answer before quoting."

Worked example: weak to strong

Prompt 1 (weak):

epic fantasy warrior, ultra detailed, 8k, trending

Typical result: A generic muscular figure in impossible armour with fused hands, a bright magical glow, and a sense that you have seen it a thousand times. Nothing about it suits a specific game.

Prompt 2 (improved): Prompt 1 above, with role, silhouette, palette, lighting and negative terms.

Why it is better: "Ultra detailed, 8k, trending" adds noise, not information. Concrete design choices produce a character with a place in your game.

Workflow: from idea to a usable card set

1. Use Prompt 8 to write your style block.
2. Use Prompt 9 to plan the set.
3. Generate heroes with Prompt 1 and villains with Prompt 2.
4. Generate environments with Prompts 3 and 4 for backgrounds.
5. Generate props and icons with Prompts 5 and 7.
6. Review with the checklist, then use Prompt 10 to brief a human artist for final art if you need it.

Troubleshooting

| Problem | Likely cause | Fix | |—|—|—| | Hands and fingers are wrong | Common model limit | Hide hands, change pose, edit or re-roll | | Characters look different across images | No shared style block | Reuse the same style paragraph and a consistent seed or reference if available | | Colours feel garish | No palette | Name 3-4 colours and add "muted" | | Background distracts | Not specified | "Plain mid-grey background" | | Text appears in the art | Default artefact | Add "no text" to prompt and negative | | Image feels generic | Buzzwords | Replace "epic, ultra detailed" with specific materials and light |

Review checklist

• Anatomy, weapons and hands checked at full size.
• No resemblance to real characters, living artists' styles or trademarked works.
• Licence and commercial-use terms for your plan checked.
• Store AI-disclosure rules (for example Steam) checked before launch.
• Style is consistent across the set.
• Text on cards is added in your design tool, not baked into the image.
• Silhouettes and icons are readable at their real in-game size.

FAQ

Can I sell a game that uses Leonardo images?

It depends on Leonardo's current terms, your plan and the store's policies. Check both before you ship.

How do I keep a character consistent?

Use a shared style block, similar prompts and any reference or character tools the platform currently offers. Expect some drift and plan for edits.

Should I use "in the style of" an artist?

Avoid naming living artists. Describe technique, lighting and palette instead.

Are negative prompts necessary?

They help, especially for hands, text and watermarks, but they do not guarantee fixes.

Can AI replace my illustrator?

For concepts and placeholders it can speed things up. For final consistent art many studios still rely on human artists or heavy human editing.

Conclusion

Strong Leonardo AI prompts for fantasy game art come from design thinking: silhouette, role, light and palette. Write a style block, generate a small set, and decide early what will be final art and what is placeholder.