In this guide, we will cover:
Why creating an artist is essential
Artist style: why choosing matters
How to create eye-catching album art
How and why to create an artist library
Why Creating an Artist is Essential
An artist is not only a face to your songs. They are the reason people will return.
To build an audience to your music, your songs needs to tell a story. And every story needs a main character.
Who should you use as your music’s main character?
The choice of who will represent your music is open ended. It can be your own self, or, like I have done, be fictional artists that are stylized to seem somewhat realistic. You could also make something fantastical, surreal, sci-fi, etc. Examples:
I’ve started with a lineup of realistic artists, but that does not mean this is necessarily the best choice. Each of these styles have potential benefits.
Why Artist Style Matters
The (at least) three kinds of artists you should consider
Realism
Creating a realistic looking yet fictional artist is compelling both in looks and how they communicate celebrity status, as it is easy to make artists look quite glamorous with AI. However, this route comes with the downside of potentially being deceptive to one’s audience, which might feel betrayed when learning the artist is “not realâ€
Stylized Fiction
Creating a more fictional looking artist may appeal to a narrower audience. But the approach is potentially more honest (you're fooling no one) and a potentially sustainable choice for building a fan base. Additionally, it might be easier to create passable AI generated video content for an artist that is already un-realistic, as it can be hard to make AI videos look real.
Fantastical
Creating a fantastical character is even more niche, but it is quite a fresh concept for music, and may gain wider traction with time. With this, anything is possible. You can make an Elf DJ, an Orc singer songwriter, a space marine metal band. There is a kind of playfulness to this approach that makes it easy to like.
What I use to generate my Artist Images
There are several services to generate images with. After testing the competition, Midjourney has become my go-to. (Subscription based; Free alternatives on next page)
Midjourney now lets you “fine tune†your profile to create your own personal aesthetic.
Using the Midjourney site, Create an image for your artist. Next you can add it as a reference for your future generation by dragging and dropping it in “omni reference.â€
This way, you can make more images of your artist (although results may vary). As with all current AI, if we generate enough, something will stand out.
Quick Tip 1: For my prompts, I usually lead with “magazine cover photo of…†to better composition.
Quick Tip 2: I never use “Realistic photo of…†as it makes the image look less realistic.
Quick Tip 3: Think about which aesthetics fit your music, and experiment!
Setting the stage for your artist’s socials
As you are creating your album art, it’s helpful to think about your artist’s socials. Before you even post anything, you can start experimenting with how you want your Insta grid to look. I use the free tool Miro to set up a basic grid.
Although this step is totally optional, I have found it very effective in refining my artist(s) visual aesthetics. Miro is easy to use—like a blackboard with added functionality.
Below is an example of my creative process for some of my artists.
More than just a face to your music, your artist grid is an opportunity to tell a story with images. A good story lies at the heart of any successful artist.
If you don’t yet have a name for your artist, this is a great time to come up with one.
Three easy rules for a good artist name:
Easy to read
Easy to say out loud
Easy to remember
As the saying goes: rules are (sometimes) meant to be broken. If you come up with a name you really like and it doesn’t follow one of these rules, don’t worry. It’s not over. There are plenty of popular artists with names that are hard to pronounce.
When you have an artist name, and you are getting a good idea of who your artist is, it means you’ve created a foundation for your music releases.
How to create album art
Use the album covers as another opportunity to tell a story
What story does these album covers tell you? Without even listening to their music, we already have a sense of who they are.
For every song or album of songs, you’ll need a cover. Midjourney is excellent for this, but if you want a free alternative, you can check out ChatGPT.
If you want to do this manually, I’d recommend:
Generate the Album Image using Midjourney or ChatGPT
Use a free Canva plan to add text and any other designs
Note: If you are a paying member of the Mixtape Community, you’ll have access to the Mixtape Tool Suite which includes an “Album Cover Creator†that can simplify this step a bit.
Once you have an album cover, great! You now have a way to visualize the most important thing: your artist’s library.
Why You Want an Artist Library
Power in Numbers: Artist Library
If you want to gain an audience, you’ll want more than one or two songs.
Why?
If someone hears your song and decide to click your profile, we want to offer them a range of songs they can add to their playlists. Furthermore, in case it is a part of your goals to make some bucks from your music, having a library of songs will be a critical component to the later guide: to monetize your artist’s music.
Your artist’s collection of music is what we will refer to as your artist library—it’s what we’ll want to continuously build on over time to increase the impact of your artist, once you put it on streaming.
Before we go over how to get your music on streaming services, a quick recap.
So far, we have covered:
How to Create AI songs using Suno
Best practices to own your music
How and why to master songs
Why an artist is essential
How to generate artist images
How to build an artist library
Coming up:
Quick Guide: Put Your Music on Streaming Services
This concludes the Guide: Create Your AI Artist
Thank you for reading and for being a supporter of this community.
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