Cyberpunk

How It Works

I’ve chosen a couple of base prompts that represent classic cyberpunk themes. Then, I added each of the keywords below one at a time to show how they influence the images Midjourney creates.

Take a look at the images below—they show how Midjourney interprets the base prompts without any added keywords.

This was my FAVOURITE prompt discovery in my cyberpunk research.

It contrasts the classic cyberpunk neon pinks, purples, and blues with dark negative spaces. It makes some of the coolest images I’ve ever seen!

Neon Noir also pushes Midjourney to explore darker themes in its generations. Something about images generated with this keyword feel like they came from an underworld.

Dieselpunk keeps all cyberpunk’s grungy, low-life themes but uses a completely different colour pallet. It uses more greys, metallics, and rusty oranges. It gives more post-apocalyptic vibes than a futuristic city.

This style makes me think of Black Panther. It uses the classic futuristic neons of cyberpunk but adds a spin unique to African culture.

Something I did not expect is this prompt tends to generate more artwork than the other cyberpunk styles. Most of the other aesthetics on this list lean more towards digital art, while Afrofuturism can often add more of an artful twist.

This was a new aesthetic to me, but looking back I see it in a lot of popular media like WALL-e, Zelda games, and even the recent Wild Robot movie!

Solarpunk is a more optimistic view on cyberpunk themes. It generates brighter, cleaner, happier images. Its a dream of a brighter future, rather than the nihilistic one in classic cyberpunk artwork.

Neo Tokyo maintains the classic cyberpunk color palette but puts more of an anime twist on it. Probably helps that Neo Tokyo is a an actual anime. 

Since the keyword leans that way anyway, I found it helpful to use the –niji parameter.

Oh steampunk, what a classic style. I debated not including it on this list since its so well known, but it makes such cool photos I had to include it.

Instead of showcasing a futuristic look at society, it imagines a technological view on the past. I.e. what-if society had technology we had today, but only using steam and gears.

This is likely the style people imagine when they think of cyberpunk: bright neon pinks and blue, a retro 80’s gamer aesthetic.

The synthwave prompt helps Midjourney really lean into classic cyberpunk themes. The style was actually created in the 2000s as an exaggerated and nostalgic view on 80s gammer styles, so cyberpunk photos generated with this keyword are turned up to 11.

The glitch art keyword is pretty self-explanitory: it makes art that looks like a glitch on a computer screen… but artful and nice!

It really pairs well with cyberpunk photos since cyberpunk art leans so heavily on technological themes.

The Acid Design prompt turns the cyberpunk colors up by 1000%. You wouldn’t believe it by the neon colors are even MORE neon.

Similarly to the synthwave prompt, vaporeware make some pretty classic looking cyberpunk images.

Although the term “urban jungle” is usually used to describe the vastness of cities in cyberpunk art, I really like Midjourney’s spin on the descriptor! It takes the prompt literally and tries to add jungle elements to the cyberpunk images.

It changes the usual neon-futurisitc city into eco-friendly architecture, or post-apocalyptic overgrown cityscapes.

This keyword adds emotional weight and visual depth, often introducing rich, shadowy tones with a strong presence of reds. It steers the artwork toward darker, more introspective themes, giving your cyberpunk scenes a haunting edge.

Swapping out neon glow for gritty reds and muted tones, this keyword gives your images a rough, worn-in texture. It adds a sense of decay and realism, making your cyberpunk worlds feel more lived-in and less polished.

Neon, likely the first word anyone thingks of when they think of cyberpunk art, however adding it dials the colors up to 11 so its worth adding to the list.