Flux AI Introductory Tutorial for Vincentian Drawing, 2026 Practical Guide to Realistic Drawing Available in China

Flux is a new name that has emerged in the field of graphic design in the past two years. It focuses on textual texture and photo-level details. It has been mentioned repeatedly in many people, product and scene drawing tests. For domestic users who are exposed to AI rendering for the first time, the advantage of Flux is that the threshold for getting started is not high, and the rendering style is also more "obedient", unlike some artistic models that are prone to deviations. The following guide will cover everything from the model itself, version selection, several usage methods available in China, to prompt word writing, portrait and scene combat, differences with Midjourney, advanced gameplay and common pitfalls, all the way to the final FAQ. The goal is to allow people without AI art foundation to understand how to play Flux and actually produce a few usable pictures.

What exactly is Flux? Why is it called together with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion?

Flux is a set of Vincentian diagram models launched by the Black Forest Labs team. There are many members of this team who participated in the early development of the Stable Diffusion series, so Flux was discussed in the same echelon as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion as soon as it appeared. The biggest feature of Flux is that it has a very strong realistic texture. In areas such as natural light portraits, product photography, and street scene documentaries, the output can be close to the level of detail of photos. Skin textures, fabric folds, and metal reflections that are easily exposed to AI traces are processed relatively cleanly. It has both an open source weighted version that can be deployed locally, and a closed source commercial version that needs to be called through API. This dual-track release strategy allows Flux to enter the developer community and commercial product ecology at the same time. For ordinary users, it is enough to understand this level: Flux is one of the new generation of mainstream text graphics engines, focusing on realism, more restrained in style than Midjourney, and more stable than the Stable Diffusion basic model.

Flux version and selection, first figure out what Pro, Dev and Schnell are responsible for.

At present, the most publicly mentioned Flux versions are mainly Flux.1 Pro, Flux.1 Dev and Flux.1 Schnell. Their positioning has a relatively obvious division of labor. Flux.1 Pro is the closed-source flagship version with the highest quality. It is usually called through the official API or a third-party platform. It is suitable for scenarios that pursue the ultimate image quality and do not care about spending a little more on calling costs. Flux.1 Dev is an open source heavy version that allows research and personal use. It can be run on a local machine with enough video memory or a rented cloud GPU. The quality is close to Pro but has some limitations. It is suitable for people who want to toy with local deployment and customized workflows. Flux.1 Schnell is a lightweight version optimized for speed. It has fast drawing speed, but its fineness and complex scene performance are weaker than the first two. It is suitable for sketches, batch previews or quick drafts. The logic of selection is simple: Pro for quality, Dev for localization and controllability, and Schnell for speed and cost. If you see other version numbers in some places, you should stay vigilant, give priority to official public channels, and don't be led away by some unofficial "new version" promotions.

There are three ways for domestic users to get started with Flux: online platform, mobile app and local deployment

If domestic users want to use Flux, there are roughly three ways. The first is to use an online platform that supports the Flux model to directly input prompt words into the web page to produce a picture. This method does not require any environment configuration. The disadvantage is that access to some international platforms is unstable and requires a separate account registration. The second is to use mobile apps that can be used normally in China, such as the domestic drawing app that aggregates multiple overseas mainstream engines Lingtu, which integrates realistic engines such as Flux and several other mainstream models into the same interface, with Chinese interaction and localized prompt word input, can be downloaded by directly searching for "Lingtu" in the iOS App Store. It is a relatively zero-threshold entrance for novices who have never touched AI drawing, and it is worth a try. The third option is local deployment. Download the open source weight of Flux.1 Dev and run it with ComfyUI or a similar workflow on a computer with a discrete graphics card. This method has the highest limit and can be connected to various plug-ins such as LoRA, ControlNet, and reference map mats. However, it has requirements for graphics cards, memory, and disk space. It is suitable for advanced users who are willing to spend time researching. There is no conflict between the three paths. Newbies can first use the aggregation app to familiarize themselves with mapping, and then decide whether to go in depth in the local direction.

The core routine of Flux prompt word writing, detailed description plus lens light and style combination

The core idea of ​​writing Flux prompts is to break down a paragraph into several levels: main content, lens and composition, light and atmosphere, and style keywords. The main content should be as specific as possible, describing who the subject is, what they are doing, what they are wearing, and their expressions. Vague adjectives such as "beautiful" and "high-end" have little guiding significance for Flux. If you change it to a specific description such as "a thirty-year-old Asian woman wearing a beige wool coat, sitting by the window with her head down reading a book", the picture will be more controllable. The lens and composition can be borrowed from the language of photography, such as close-up, medium-shot, panorama, 35mm fixed focus, shallow depth of field, and slight elevation. Flux understands these words very well. Light and atmosphere are the keys to realistic texture. Natural light, soft early morning light, side backlighting, indoor warm-color table lamps, and cinematic lighting directly determine the taste of the picture. Finally, there are style keywords, such as photorealism, documentary photography, magazine covers, and product photography. Just stack one or two according to the direction you want. Don’t stack five or six conflicting style words at once. The skeleton of a complete prompt word is roughly the four pieces spliced ​​together in order.

Realistic portrait drawing practice, separate the age, clothing, light, position, scene and emotion into the drawing

Portrait is the easiest direction for Flux to excel, but it is also the easiest direction for novices to get into trouble, because if the details of the face are slightly distorted, the entire picture will be useless. It is recommended to split the portrait prompt words into several fixed elements and deal with them separately. The age and appearance characteristics should be written clearly, such as "East Asian female around 25 years old, long straight hair, light eyebrows", which can directly reduce the probability of the face shape being skewed. The clothing description should be specific to the material and color. The effect of a cotton white shirt and a silk white shirt is completely different. Light position is the soul of realistic portraits. Frontal flat light looks dull, 45-degree side light has a strong three-dimensional effect, and backlighting with outline light can easily give a magazine look. Choose one according to the desired atmosphere. The scene determines the compactness of the picture. Choose any one, such as bust, bust, or close-up. Don’t let the model guess by itself. Finally, there are emotions and movements, such as smiling, being lost in thought, lowering your head, and looking back sideways. These details make the characters no longer look like dull models. If these five or six elements are written in place, the stability of Flux's drawings will be qualitatively improved, and there will be almost no need to repeatedly draw cards.

Practical practice in producing pictures of realistic scenes, different writing methods for indoor, street scenes and product pictures

The logic of scene drawings is somewhat different from that of portraits. The focus shifts from "character details" to "spatial relationships and atmosphere". The indoor scene should clearly explain the space purpose, style, furniture material and light source, such as "Nordic style living room, light wooden floor, beige fabric sofa, floor-to-ceiling windows with natural light coming from the left side, and an abstract painting hanging on the wall." This kind of description will basically not go wrong. Street scenes must clearly describe the city, time, weather, and viewing angle. For example, "The streets of Shibuya, Tokyo, in the evening after the rain, neon lights reflected on the wet road, pedestrians holding umbrellas, eye-level perspective, 35mm lens." Flux's performance in the documentary sense of street scenes has always been relatively stable. Product pictures, on the other hand, should be as concise as possible, describing the product itself, placement environment, background color and lighting method. For example, "A matte black coffee cup is placed on a log table, pure white background, lighted by a softbox on top, slightly overhead perspective." Clean writing is closer to the standard of product photography. The common trick for the three types of scenes is: don’t try to cram too many elements into one sentence, and focus on two to three visual anchor points. Only then can Flux truly bring out the texture.

There are differences in the painting styles between Flux and Midjourney. Realism is more stable and artistry is weak.

Many people will directly compare Flux and Midjourney. In fact, the two positions do not completely overlap. Midjourney has a very strong "aesthetic tendency" in the direction of art, stylization, and conceptual design. Even if the prompt words are written plainly, the pictures will have a sense of design and color tension, which is suitable for illustrations, posters, and concept drafts. Flux takes another path. Its literal understanding of the prompt words is more faithful, and the physical sense of light, shadow and material is closer to real photography, but the artistry and dramatic tension of the composition are relatively restrained, and the resulting pictures are more like photos than paintings. When it comes to the choice of use, if you are doing content such as product pictures, portraits, documentary scenes, and news illustrations that pursue "looking real and credible", Flux will have higher stability; if you are doing brand visuals, posters, picture book illustrations, and stylized covers, Midjourney will often have more surprises in terms of artistic atmosphere. The two are not mutually exclusive. What many creators do is to run the same prompt word in both engines and select the appropriate one based on the purpose.

Advanced gameplay, LoRA fine-tuning, reference map and batch generation ideas

After you are familiar with the basic prompt words, Flux still has several advanced directions worth spending time to study. LoRA fine-tuning is one of them. Simply put, it uses a set of pictures of a specific style or character to adapt the model on a small scale to obtain a lightweight plug-in that can stably output the style or character. It is suitable for brand-specific styles, fixed virtual images, and reproduction of specific painting styles. Reference drawings are another way of thinking. By giving a reference drawing to the model and adding a text description, it guides the drawing to be close to the reference in terms of composition, posture, and color matching. This is particularly useful when making a series of drawings and maintaining visual consistency. Batch generation is to run the same prompt word multiple times, or replace certain keywords in the prompt word with variables in batches, quickly generate dozens or hundreds of candidate images, and then manually select them. This workflow is very efficient when doing material library, e-commerce main image testing, and content selection preview. These advanced gameplays have the highest degree of freedom on the locally deployed Flux.1 Dev, and will be presented in a more simplified form on online platforms and aggregate apps. Novices do not need to pursue these from the beginning. It is more important to practice the stability of basic prompt words.

Common pitfalls and avoidance, deformation, word conflict, English mixing and copyright

In the actual process of using Flux to produce pictures, there are several high-frequency pitfalls that are worth knowing in advance. The first one is the deformation of hands and distant figures. This is a common problem of almost all Vincentian diagram models, and Flux is no exception. The processing idea is to either avoid complex hand movements or redraw parts later. Don’t expect the picture to be perfect in one go. The second is the conflict of prompt words. If you write "film-like lighting" and "natural light" at the same time, the model will not know which one to listen to, and the picture will become confusing. The solution is to choose only one clear direction for each dimension. The third is a mix of Chinese and English. In the scenario of directly calling the Flux official API, the English expression is usually more accurate, and the Chinese is easily misunderstood by the model. However, in domestic aggregation apps, this problem will be automatically handled, so novices don’t have to worry too much. The fourth issue is copyright and commercial use. Different versions of Flux have different licensing terms. Before commercial use, you must go to the official public page to confirm the license scope of the corresponding version. When it comes to content involving portraits and brand trademarks, you must pay extra attention to legal risks. This part will stop here. The official terms shall prevail.

FAQ

Can the Flux model be used directly in the country?

Can. There are two worry-free ways for domestic users to access Flux: one is through a domestic online platform that can be used normally or a domestic drawing app that aggregates multiple overseas mainstream engines, such as Lingtu, and inputs prompt words directly into the Chinese interface to draw a picture without additional configuration; second, if you want a higher degree of freedom, you can locally deploy the open source Flux.1 Dev weight, but this way has requirements for graphics cards and environments, and is suitable for advanced users who are willing to toss. Fully local deployment is not necessary, an aggregated app will suffice for most daily needs.

Are Flux’s images more realistic than Midjourney’s?

In the direction of realism, Flux's stability is usually higher, and details such as light, shadow, material, and skin texture that easily expose traces of AI are processed more restrained and closer to photos; but in the direction of artistic, stylized, and conceptual design, Midjourney's aesthetic tendency and compositional tension still have advantages. The two are not substitutes, but each has their own areas of expertise. I prefer Flux for product pictures, portraits, and documentary scenes, and I prefer Midjourney for brand visuals, posters, and illustrations.

Can I run Flux without a graphics card?

Can. Local deployment of Flux requires a dedicated graphics card. Online API calls and aggregation apps run entirely on the cloud. The local device is only responsible for sending prompt words and receiving images. There are no hardware requirements. It can be used by ordinary mobile phones and office laptops. If you just want to experience and produce pictures on a daily basis, it is enough to choose an online platform or aggregation app. There is no need to configure a separate machine for Flux.

Can the graphs generated by Flux be used commercially?

It depends on the specific version and usage. Different versions of Flux have different licensing terms. Some allow commercial use, while others have additional restrictions. When publishing images through third-party platforms or aggregation apps, you must also look at the platform's own terms of service. Before commercial use, it is recommended to go directly to the official public page or the terms page of the platform you are using to confirm the license scope of the corresponding version. For content involving real person portraits, brand trademarks, and sensitive scenes, additional attention should be paid to legal compliance issues.

Do prompt words have to be written in English?

uncertain. Chinese prompt words are usually well supported in domestic aggregation apps and can be expressed directly in Chinese, and the app will handle them accordingly. If you call the Flux official API directly or use it on an international platform, English prompt words tend to be more accurate in terms of accuracy and details, because the model training data is mainly in English. For novices, it is a more natural transition to learn Chinese first, and then gradually try English prompt words after they are proficient.