No More Stock Footage: How I Create Original Visuals on a Budget
I run a Faceless YouTube channel focused on horror and mystery stories. For creators like me, the most torturous part isn't writing the script—it's finding the visuals.
I used to spend entire afternoons scouring Pexels and Shutterstock just to find enough clips for a one-minute video. But the moment my script got specific—like "a man in a yellow raincoat standing in an abandoned Japanese subway station with green mist"—stock libraries became useless. You just can't find images that specific. I also tried video AI tools like LTX, but honestly, they are too expensive and the results are often glitchy and uncontrollable.
Until last week, I discovered Artifyillu, and it felt like it was custom-made for "slideshow-style" storytellers like me.
What surprised me most was its ability to recreate specific scenes. I no longer have to search for a needle in a haystack or learn complex Midjourney prompts. I just paste my horror script, and it captures exactly that eerie, damp, cyberpunk atmosphere I had in my head.
For a horror series, the protagonist can't keep changing faces. In this "Last Train" project, I needed the main character to wear the same yellow raincoat and maintain the same silhouette in every shot. Artifyillu handled this perfectly, making my video look like a cohesive static movie rather than a pile of random stock photos.
I used to stress out about copyright issues constantly. Now? I can generate a set of unique, copyright-free storyboard assets in minutes. The visual impact blows away generic stock footage.
Below are the full assets I generated for "The Last Train." Since switching to this style, my retention rate has visibly improved. Highly recommended for all content creators.
