My first attempt at a style! Do you like haunted mansions and victorian era ghosts and horror with that late 70's/early 80's bleed-over? Give this a try. Will it work? No idea! I toldja, I've never done a style, but I think my samples were good! All the info that's fit to print if you read on though!
So's this was 30 samples, I stuck to what I thought was consistent style so there's more emphasis on that than having characters doing alot of different things, but I think there ought to be enough variance. You can download my dataset of course, or you want a quick preview of a couple pics:
I have sensibilities but I'm not an art term guy. I would describe it mainly as painting meets horror pulp, so here's what ChatGPT has to say about this:
1. Painterly realism with visible brushwork
The rendering isn’t photorealistic—forms are built with layered, textured strokes. Uses mottled, almost palette-knife-like textures, giving it a decayed, tactile quality. Edges are selectively softened or sharpened to guide focus.
2. Gothic horror influence
The composition—central figure foregrounded, looming monster behind, haunted house in the distance—echoes classic pulp horror covers and gothic illustration. The dripping red framing acts like both blood and compositional vignette, reinforcing the genre tone.
3. Limited, moody color palette
Colors are restrained: desaturated greens, browns, and grays dominate, contrasted with deep, saturated reds. The red is used strategically (hair, background drips) to unify the image and create emotional intensity.
4. Cinematic lighting and staging
There’s a strong directional light that models the protagonist’s face and arms, while the background recedes into shadow. This creates depth and tension, almost like a film still.
5. Character-focused storytelling composition
The image layers narrative elements:
Foreground: the anxious protagonist (naturalistic proportions, expressive face)
Midground: the monstrous figure (exaggerated anatomy, symbolic threat)
Background: the house (environmental context, genre cue)
Side overlay: the secondary female face (memory, identity, or psychological echo)
This stacked composition suggests psychological horror, not just physical danger.
6. Graphic novel / cover art sensibility
The bold silhouette, controlled palette, and dramatic framing feel like high-end comic cover art or a horror novel cover—designed to communicate mood and story instantly.
7. Mixed realism levels
The human figure is rendered with relatively grounded anatomy and subtle expression, while the monster is stylized—almost sculptural and grotesque. This contrast heightens unease.
Overall, it sits at the intersection of:
Dark fantasy illustration
Horror pulp cover art
Painterly digital realism
with a strong emphasis on atmosphere, texture, and narrative symbolism over strict realism.
Ok, so! Like I said, I went with style over content. I'll get to characters in a bit, but this should favor creepy mansion exterior, ghosts, skeletons and rotting zombies, interiors with a painterly/pulp art style with fashion and hair styles of either victorian england or late 70's/early 80's. A few of these are multiple panels/multiple versions of the character, montage/collages, so you may have lucky leaning into that.
There's some feature drift, but if you want something like the main girl (Red), you can go something like:
An dark auburn haired 28 year old tomboy with brown eyes and an early 80s's hair style and clothes, blue jeans and Queen A Night At The Opera tshirt. Painterly horror comic illustration in watercolor and ink style, with expressive brushwork and dynamic splatter textures. Hand-painted look with layered washes, visible paper grain, and bleeding reds at the corners. Realistic but stylized anatomy, strong chiaroscuro lighting, gritty and visceral tone. Dramatic motion and emotional intensity, reminiscent of traditional horror pulp covers or painted comic panels. gritty watercolor textures, dynamic brush strokes, ink outline bleed, expressive shadows, moody lighting, desaturated background, limited red-black-brown palette, emotive portrait composition. Negative prompts: “no clean digital art, no smooth anime lines, no glossy rendering, no cel shading, no airbrush style, no 3D realism, no cartoon”
I stick her in ALOT of early 80's shirts, you can try to get specific, you never know!
If you want the villain (Wilson/Lord Henry) in his living disguise, you can go something like:
Man, 30, montage, painting style, gritty horror comic style, late 70s/early 80s hair and clothes. In one picture wearing painters overalls and talking idly and charming stubble, in another looking concerned with very light stubble and button-up shirt, leather jacket, and another wearing Victorian era gentleman's clothes, looking oily, older, affably evil, with moustache, groomed mutton chops. Negative prompt: Hyper realism
So's, why'd I do this lora? Besides badly needing a break from Skyrim OCs and obscure H series, I wanted to try a style, and I just really like these. And if you can't tell, I AM a fan of stuff like Hell House and Giallo and that whole era, I'm still a sucker for a good haunted mansion movie. Interesting story behind this, an IRL artist friend of mine sketched a montage of my characters, I fed it it into Leonardo back in the day, and got the prototype for these. I used the samples from THOSE in Sora, and got this style, which I think is a bit more consistent.
Ok, SO, this is another story I came up with back in college, this was 2002, I remember cuz the Ring was in theaters and I went to lunch and came up with a third of the story right there. Red is also very much a prototype for the sort of tomboy female characters I'm into:
Winifred "Red" Thompson is a renovator of old houses and mansions, and finds herself called to England by an old boss to renovate a Georgian manor called Londley Crest. Londley Crest was once owned by a deceased Lord Henry, renowned for his cruelty and sadism who was said to be murdered by his own servants. Red goes about her work and finds herself frequently alone with Wilson, a native of the area. Wilson is overly friendly and seems fascinated by the gruff tomboy American Red. He spends much of his time hanging about her and making an effort to be charming while simultaneously annoying Red with dated sexist presumptions. Red complains to her boss, who can't recall Wilson. Despite Wilson's "help" work appears to go no faster. As the project goes on, Red finds herself completely alone and begins to experience many disconcerting hallucinations and dangerous near accidents that put her life in danger. As it turns out, Lord Henry is still about, lonely and desperate for company, even if he has to murder some.
Description
30 references, 11 epochs, 11 retries, keyword is L0ndl3y. Read the lora description or data set for ideas!