# Midjourney for Beginners: Step-By-Step Guide to Generating AI Art - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/midjourney-for-beginners-step-by-step-guide-to-generating-ai-art/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Other · Quick win · Rated 5 /10 # Midjourney for Beginners: Step-By-Step Guide to Generating AI Art Updated August 2026 Arnold Trinh · Creative AI Lecturer Beginner · 87 min A fast, hands-on walkthrough of Midjourney's mechanics that skips the deeper craft of prompt writing it promises to teach. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fmidjourney-for-beginners-step-by-step-guide-to-generating-ai-art%2F1316444178) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Arnold Trinh's course does exactly what a beginner course should do at the level of mechanics: it gets a newcomer from a blank Midjourney account to a finished, upscaled image without any confusion about which button does what. The 87 minutes move through setup, settings, prompt basics, parameters, generation, and image expansion in a logical sequence, and every step is demonstrated live rather than described abstractly. For someone who has never typed a slash command into Discord, that hand-holding has real value. ## What the course actually teaches The strongest material is the settings walkthrough and the parameter reference. Trinh goes toggle by toggle through version numbers, raw mode, niji mode, stylize levels, and the render speed tiers (turbo, fast, relaxed), explaining what each one changes about the output rather than just naming it. The basic parameters lesson does the same for --ar, --no, and --q, showing side-by-side comparisons so the effect of a quality setting or a "no clouds" exclusion is visible rather than asserted. The image expansion and upscaling lessons are similarly concrete, covering zoom-out, directional pan, vary strong versus vary subtle, and the make-square function, all demonstrated on a running cat example that carries through several lessons. Where the course is thinner is on the thing its own title promises: how to write a prompt. The "formula" amounts to subject, then scene, then parameters, a structure any user would infer within a few tries. The lesson on replicating art styles is really a lesson in copying prompts wholesale from the Midjourney feed and swapping in a new subject, which is a legitimate way to learn by imitation but is not prompt engineering in any deeper sense. There is no discussion of how weight syntax works, how word order actually influences the model's attention, or why certain phrase combinations conflict with each other, the kind of detail that separates a beginner who gets lucky renders from one who can deliberately steer them. ## Strengths and shortcomings The web browser interface lesson is a genuine asset, since it covers the newer alpha explorer layout including stylization sliders, weirdness, and variety controls that map onto Discord's chaos parameter, giving the course some staying power against the platform's eventual moves away from Discord entirely. The class project structure, submitting a final image to a gallery for feedback, is a reasonable way to close the loop, though the course offers no rubric or checklist for what a strong submission looks like beyond "artwork with intention." The bigger issue is pacing and repetition. Several lessons re-run near-identical cat or car generations to demonstrate a single settings change, padding runtime without adding new information. A viewer who has already sat through the settings lesson does not need three more rounds of watching a percentage bar fill in. The course also never addresses cost or account tiers in any depth beyond mentioning that non-paying users share a crowded newbie room, which matters for anyone deciding whether to subscribe before starting. As a first hour with Midjourney, this works. As training in prompt craft, which is the actual skill that separates good AI art from lucky rolls, it stays at the surface. The standout Breaking down a real community prompt line by line, showing how camera brand names, film stock, and artist references combine to produce a specific photographic look. ## What you will learn - · How to join Midjourney through Discord and navigate the newbie generation rooms - · The purpose of every toggle in the Settings panel, including version number, stylize, chaos, and speed modes - · A basic three-part prompt formula: subject first, scene details second, parameters last - · How to use core parameters like aspect ratio, --no, and --q for quality - · How to upscale, vary, zoom out, and pan an image to expand or refine it - · How to reverse-engineer other users' prompts from the Midjourney community feed Best for: A total beginner who has never opened Midjourney and just wants to get oriented on the interface, settings, and basic commands within an hour. Skip it if: Anyone who already knows the interface and wants a real methodology for prompt engineering, since the promised formula stays surface level. Actionable Steps Helpful Examples Engaging Teacher Organization of Lessons [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fmidjourney-for-beginners-step-by-step-guide-to-generating-ai-art%2F1316444178)