Open the folder of a creator whose series drift and you will find the same thing every time: the character was never written down. She exists as a vibe, re-described from memory in every prompt, and memory quietly edits — the hair shortens, the face softens, the signature detail vanishes by week three. The entry sheet is the unglamorous fix: one record per character, filled in once, pasted — never retyped — into every job that features her.
The fields, in order
A working entry sheet has five fixed fields. Age comes first, stated as a number and always 25 or over, because an explicit adult age removes ambiguity everywhere downstream. Then hair: colour, length and one default style, phrased concretely — “long wavy jet-black hair with a deep side part” survives generation; “beautiful hair” is an opinion the model re-interprets per job. Then build, in two or three words. Then face: one or two durable details, no more. Last, the signature — the nose ring, the tattoo, the beauty mark — the field a subscriber recognises in a thumbnail.
Everything not on that list is a variable field, and variable fields are supposed to change: wardrobe, setting, light, pose. The discipline is in the filing. Fixed fields sit at the top of the prompt, identical, every time; variable fields follow, one set per entry.
Versioning the sheet
Characters evolve — a haircut arc, a new signature. When yours does, do not edit the sheet in place. Save the new version with a number and a date, and keep the old one. Series produced against version one remain reproducible, and if the new look underperforms, the record of what worked is still on file. An index you cannot re-run is just a pile with good intentions.
Production against the record
With the sheet written, production becomes clerical in the best sense. Brief a set by pairing the record with three to five scene lines that share one setting and light setup. Generate wide at the standard price, file the best third, and note the winning scene lines on the record itself. Next month’s batch then starts from evidence, not from memory — which is the entire difference between a catalogue and a camera roll.