Style books

Prompt blocks: grass, meadows and flower cards

Every prompt is STYLE + subject + FRAME, as pipeline/flora/subjects.mjs builds them. Model for everything here: gpt-image-2-5-sunburst through Venice, 1536 × 1024 for frames and sheets, 1024 × 1024 for cards, 20 steps, seeds in prompts.json. The four card blocks were also run on Venice's hosted krea-v2-large.

Not validated on Krea 2 as the game runs it (the Mac was offline, and Krea is not installed on zap, a local file). The hosted krea-v2-large may differ from the Mac's Krea 2 in weights and steps; what it showed: it follows the blocks more literally and flatter than gpt-image, and it turns a simile into the thing itself ("like stacked beads" gave bubbles, art/rejected/krea-inside-lupin-v1.webp). Write Krea prompts without similes.

Petter's block is verbatim wherever it is used (OUT_PETTER below).

Card blocks (what subjects.mjs should become)

STYLE_INSIDE (unchanged)

Stylised hand-painted plant for a cosy Norwegian fairy-tale video game for young children, in the look of a warm hand-painted animated film: soft rounded shapes, painted textures with soft blended brushwork, warm storybook colours, bright and cheerful, a Kittelsen and John Bauer folk-tale mood made friendly and cute.

FRAME_SPRAY_INSIDE (replaces FRAME_FLOWER for the inside set)

Presented as a game sprite, chunky and toy-like, simplified, not a botanical illustration: one single small spray of flowers seen straight from the side at eye level, upright: three to five thick soft green stems of uneven height fanning out a little from one point at the bottom middle of the frame, one leaning out to the side. The blossoms are big, round and simple, oversized for their stems, and fill the upper two thirds of the frame; together the blossoms cover more of the picture than the stems do. Two or three small rounded green leaves low on the stems; the foot of the spray is just the thick bare stems: no leaf rosette, no clump of leaves at the base, no dark leaves, no ground, no soil, no pot, no grass around it, no cast shadow. Lit softly from above, the shade a soft violet-blue, nothing dark. Isolated against a simple plain flat light grey background. No faces, no insects, no text.

Proved by art/card-inside-lupin.webp, art/card-inside-daisy.webp (gpt-image; that run said "each stem as thick as a child's finger", which Krea must not be given) and art/krea-inside-lupin.webp, art/krea-inside-daisy.webp (this exact text).

STYLE_OUTSIDE_PLANT (Petter's block, then the plant's rules; replaces the second half of STYLE_OUTSIDE)

A richly painterly animated-illustration style built on visible, confident brushstroke texture layered directly into rendering rather than smoothed away, a fusion of hand-painted textural depth with clean animation-ready linework, and a bold painterly-meets-graphic animation intensity that feels both illustrated and alive. Influenced by: Fortiche Production, League of Legends concept-art tradition, painterly animation technique, cinematic stylized character-design practice. A wild plant for a Norwegian fairy-tale adventure game for children, painted boldly with a wide flat brush: every blossom is two or three flat strokes of one strong, clear, glowing colour with a hard painted edge, every stem a single confident stroke of muted sage green; simplified, graphic and a little angular, not a botanical illustration, no fine detail, no thin outlines round every petal, nothing dark.

What changed from today's block: "muted cool base colours, the blossoms the one strong colour" asked for dull flowers and got them. The new second half asks for the stroke outright and for a clear, glowing blossom.

FRAME_SPRAY_OUTSIDE

Presented as a game sprite: one single spray of flowers seen straight from the side at eye level, leaning to the right as if in a wind: four to six stems of uneven height sweeping up from one point at the bottom middle of the frame, each stem one thick brush stroke. The blossoms are large and fill the upper two thirds of the frame; together the blossoms cover more of the picture than the stems do. Two or three leaves as single strokes low on the stems; the foot of the spray is just the bare stems: no leaf rosette, no clump of leaves at the base, no dark leaves, no ground, no soil, no pot, no grass around it, no cast shadow. Lit from above, warm amber on the lit strokes and teal in the shade strokes. Isolated against a simple plain flat light grey background. No faces, no insects, no text.

Proved by art/card-outside-globeflower.webp, art/card-outside-harebell.webp, art/card-outside-cottongrass.webp, art/card-outside-elfbell.webp and, on Krea v2, art/krea-outside-globeflower.webp, art/krea-outside-harebell.webp.

FRAME_CUSHION (thrift, moss campion: they keep their leaves)

Presented as a game sprite: one single low round cushion plant seen straight from the side at eye level, a soft dome much wider than tall, dense small leaves with its small flowers standing just above them, the whole plant in frame, centred, no ground, no soil, no pot, no cast shadow. Lit from above. Isolated against a simple plain flat light grey background. No faces, no insects, no text.

Not proved on its own; the cushions in art/cards-special-sheet.webp came from a sheet prompt with these words.

Subjects (the who of each card)

Plain descriptions, no similes. Count the blossoms; the painter keeps to a count. Painted here: inside lupin and daisy; outside globeflower, harebell, cotton grass and elf bell. The others are written to the same pattern and have not been painted.

CellInsideOutside
lupinthree plump upright lupin flower spires, each a tall cone of many small overlapping pea-flower petals, pointed at the top with small buds, one spire pink, one violet, one cream-and-pinkthree wild lupin spires in one clear violet-blue, pointed, the tips still in bud
oxeye daisyfour big daisies with fat white petals round a big round yellow centre, turned a little different ways, and one round budfive oxeye daisies with cream-white petals round an ochre centre
buttercupsix glossy butter-yellow cup flowers and three round buds
globeflowerfive round ball-shaped golden-yellow flowers, glowing clear gold as if lit from inside
harebellfive nodding round bell-shaped flowers in bright blue on arching stemssix nodding bell-shaped flowers in clear luminous violet-blue on arching stems
red cloverfour round pink-red pompom flower heads
forget-me-notsprays of small sky-blue flowers with yellow eyes, twelve in all
wood anemonefour white wood anemones with six petals and a yellow heart
dandelionone yellow dandelion flower and two round white seed clocks
cow parsleythree flat white lace umbels on tall branching stems
poppythree open red poppies and two nodding budsthree open poppies in glowing orange-red and two nodding buds
cornflowerfour cornflowers in clear luminous blue
fireweedthree tall tapering spires of open four-petalled flowers in clear glowing magenta-pink, buds at the tips
foxglovethree tall spires of hanging bell flowers in clear rose-pink, the tallest twice the shortest
heathera low round tuft of flowering heather, twigs covered in tiny rosy-pink and lilac bell flowersfour twigs of flowering heather covered in tiny bell flowers in clear rose-pink
cotton grassfive fluffy round white cotton tufts on green stemssix fluffy white cotton tufts streaming to the right in the wind on olive stems, two narrow leaves turning rust at the tips
seed grassfour feathery pale green-gold grass seed heads on thin stalksfive feathery pale-gold grass seed heads on tall stalks bowing to the right
thrifta low cushion with nine round pink flower heads on short stems (FRAME_CUSHION)the same in clear rose-pink
moss campiona low tight green cushion dotted with twenty tiny clear pink flowers (FRAME_CUSHION)
mountain avensthree white flowers with eight petals and a yellow heart on short stems
elf bellseven small bell-shaped flowers hanging from arching silver-green stems, each bell lit from inside in soft cyan with a brighter heart
elf starone tall star-shaped flower with six pointed petals glowing violet with a gold heart, and two buds

For the elf cards leave out "a faint glow round each bell" and "pollen sparks": the matte cannot cut a halo, and the game makes the glow. The sample art/card-outside-elfbell.webp was painted with the halo and shows why.

Frame blocks (target paintings, for concept work and for briefing an artist)

IN_FRAME

Concept painting for a cosy Norwegian fairy-tale video game for young children, in the look of a warm hand-painted animated film: soft blended brushwork, big simple rounded shapes, warm storybook colours, bright and cheerful, nothing scary. It should look like a frame a stylised 3D game could draw: simple, with large calm areas.

IN_GRASS (the sentence that got masses instead of blades)

The grass is the main thing and is painted as soft masses of colour, not as single blades: broad calm patches in two or three close values of warm yellow-green, some patches leaning butter-yellow, some fresh green, darker and cooler only at the very foot of the tufts. Short chunky rounded tufts show as a soft ragged fringe only along the nearest edge and along the crests of gentle rises; everywhere else the grass is flat soft colour with a few brush marks. At least two thirds of the meadow is open grass.

Proved by art/target-inside-eye.webp against art/rejected/inside-eye-v1.webp (the same scene without it), and by art/target-dusk.webp against art/rejected/dusk-v1.webp.

OUT_FRAME (OUT_PETTER is its first two sentences, verbatim)

A richly painterly animated-illustration style built on visible, confident brushstroke texture layered directly into rendering rather than smoothed away, a fusion of hand-painted textural depth with clean animation-ready linework, and a bold painterly-meets-graphic animation intensity that feels both illustrated and alive. Influenced by: Fortiche Production, League of Legends concept-art tradition, painterly animation technique, cinematic stylized character-design practice. A landscape for a Norwegian fairy-tale adventure game for children: muted cool base colours with a few glowing accent colours, thin coloured linework only on silhouettes and never on grass, no black anywhere, the darkest colour a deep teal, the shade lifted and even, brave and a little wild but friendly, nothing scary.

OUT_GRASS

The grass is painted as big brushed masses, not as single blades: long confident strokes of muted olive and grey-green laid in the direction the wind combs it, in two flat light shapes only, the lit field in olive with amber in the light and the shade in teal, the two close in value. Blades show only as a ragged wind-bent fringe along the nearest edge and on the crests of rises, all leaning the same way.

Proved by art/target-outside-eye.webp, art/target-outside-cam.webp, art/target-gust.webp.

DRIFT sentences

  • Inside: Flowers grow in a few small round drifts of one kind and one colour each, two to three metres across, with open grass between them […] and a sprinkle of tiny single dabs of colour in the grass between. The near flowers are a few big simple chunky shapes with soft edges that melt into the grass at their feet, with no dark leaves; middle ones are dabs; far ones are soft speckled patches of colour.
  • Outside: The flowers are the only saturated colour: one big drift of glowing golden-yellow globeflowers and buttercups, eight metres across, lies in the middle distance like a single stroke of light […] The rest of the field is open grass.
  • Far: On it lie five or six flower drifts as flat irregular patches of colour, like dabs of paint laid on top […] each patch is one colour, has a soft ragged edge, and is ten to forty metres across; the nearer patches are larger and brighter, the farther ones smaller, paler and bluer. (art/target-far-drifts.webp)

GUST sentence

The gust is the subject: it shows as three long curved bands of pale silver-sage light sweeping across the field from left to right, where the grass has bent over and turned its pale undersides to the sky; each band has a sharp bright leading edge and a soft fading tail behind it, and between the bands the grass stands upright in deeper olive. The bands follow the shape of the ground like brush strokes laid across it.

Proved by art/target-gust.webp.

Camera sentences

  • Eye: seen from the eye height of a small child standing in the grass, 1.25 metres up, looking level across the meadow
  • Her camera: seen from a third-person game camera: five metres behind and three metres above a small princess in a red cape with a little backpack, seen from behind in the lower middle of the picture, small, walking away into the meadow; the camera looks down at about thirty degrees, so the meadow fills the lower two thirds of the picture

The whole prompt of every image is in prompts.json.