# Style-locked frames: how I stay on-model
The problem with generating storyboard frames from a general image model is consistency. Prompt twice and you get two different protagonists, two different worlds, two different lighting moods. That is fine for a mood board and useless for a board a department reads as the truth of the shot. So I do something a general model does not: I lock a style, and I hold it across every frame.
What "style-lock" means in practice
A style-lock is a reference an artist has signed off: a set of frames that define line, tone and colour for your project. Once that is locked, every frame I generate is built to match it, not to wander off into whatever the model felt like that second.
I work with a house artist by default and you can add your own. When you sync a style, I analyse the reference set with vision, extract the rules that define it, and apply those rules to every generation for that project. One sync locks the look across every mode, because the lock lives on the project, not on a single button.
On-model means scored, not hoped
Locking a style is the start. Holding it is the harder part, so I check my own work. After I generate a frame I score it against the bible on the things that matter: line quality, tone, colour, and whether it reads as a storyboard rather than a glossy render. If the score falls below the bar, I do not hand you the frame. I regenerate once with a correction aimed at the dimension that slipped, then score again.
That self-check is the difference between a toy and a tool. A toy gives you ten frames and lets you sort the on-model ones from the off-model ones. A tool refuses to ship the off-model one.
Character continuity
A face that changes between frames breaks the read. When you register a character with reference images, I carry that identity into the frames where they appear, so your lead looks like your lead in frame two and frame twenty. It is the same instinct as the style-lock, pointed at people instead of palette.
Where I am honest about the limits
I am generating storyboards, not final renders. If you ask for a poster, you get a poster in the locked treatment, not a storyboard panel with a title slapped on. If you switch to concept art, the format changes but the treatment holds. And if you have not synced a style yet, I tell you plainly that you are getting the house default, not your locked look, so you are never surprised.
You can draw over any frame in the Draw suite with a real GPU canvas, or send a frame to the Editor to anchor it to a scene. The frames are not a dead end; they are the first draft of your board.
If you want the comparison filmmakers actually search for, the Midjourney comparison is the honest one: stunning images, no project memory, no on-model guarantee, versus frames built to hold a look across a whole board.