Everything Is the Same Stuff
A modelled-clay poster — a hanging tag, a character, a grassy foot — held to what clay can physically do, since one glass lens or one sharp corner breaks the whole illusion. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. The lantern is the same test in another form, and it held: the panel is a flat opaque yellow rectangle, not a glow and not a pane. Rope is coiled clay, grass is pressed blade by blade, the bollard is one rounded lump. One divergence between the runs — the first hung its tag from two straps, this one from a single strap. The fields said "ribbon" without giving a number, so both readings were open and each run picked its own.
The magnifier is where the source's own run gave itself away: it drew a clear lens with a specular highlight in a scene where everything else was opaque clay. Here the lens is a solid cream disc with its own matt grain and a shadow cast inside the ring — it reads as a magnifier without being made of glass. The whiskers came out as pressed grooves rather than raised threads, which is what the radius law is for; at this scale a modelled whisker would have looked like wire.
Generated for this library
Input
Character a round ginger cat in a yellow explorer's hat with
a small canvas backpack, mid-stride, tail up
Holding a magnifier as a solid ring with an opaque pale
disc inside, no transparency, no highlight
Words @THE CURIOUS CAT · BRAVE ENOUGH TO BE A ·
(CURIOUS) TRAVELLER · our backpack holds /
curiosity and / the will to go
Ribbon pale blue woven, printed EXPLORE MORE, WORRY LESS
Props a signpost reading TRAVEL, a tree, a rounded rock
Palette sky blue, warm orange, cream, grass green
Returned 1 poster · 2:3 · matt clay, soft studio light
material every object opaque and matt - no glass, no chrome,
no screen, no gloss anywhere
radius nothing comes to a point; every corner, leaf tip and
hat brim carries a visible roundness
making thumbprints across the sky, a seam where the cat
meets the card, letters pressed into the surface
tag orange border, cream card with a torn deckle edge,
hung on two white rings
foot grass with three props, each modelled the same wayYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1The character
- 2What it is holding — modelled, not glass
- 3The words on the tag
- 4The ribbon and its words
- 5The props in the grass
- 6The palette
Everything Is the Same Stuff
Produce ONE image, 2:3 portrait: a modelled-clay poster built around a hanging tag. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.
First — do you have the fields?
If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.
Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.
The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.
If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.
Fields — replace these six lines only
- The character: {who, and how posed}
- What it is holding — modelled, not glass: {the object, and how it is made}
- The words on the tag: {four lines}
- The ribbon and its words: {a colour, and the printed line}
- The props in the grass: {two or three}
- The palette: {sky, tag, card, ground}
The material law
Everything in the picture is made of the same opaque modelling clay, and that material cannot do certain things. The whole illusion rests on not asking it to.
- Nothing transparent. No glass, no lenses, no windows, no water you can see through. A magnifier is a ring with an opaque disc in it. A window is a pressed rectangle in a lighter colour.
- Nothing mirrored or chrome. Metal is matt clay in a grey tone.
- No gloss. Every surface is matt, with the light falling softly and no specular hits anywhere.
- No screens or printed images. A device is a slab with pressed shapes on it.
A reference run of this style modelled everything beautifully — sky, clouds, tag, character, grass, tree — and gave its cat a magnifier with a clear glass lens and a bright highlight on it. One object in a different material, and the eye goes straight to it.
The radius law
Clay has no points. Every corner, tip, edge and terminal carries a visible roundness, because a thumb cannot make a knife edge.
- No sharp corners on the tag, the props or the letters.
- No hairlines. Whiskers, stems and wires are pressed grooves, not raised threads — a thin raised strand would fall over.
- Leaves, ears and hat brims end in a soft blunt curve.
A single crisp corner reads as a 3D render dressed as clay.
The evidence of making
- Thumbprints and tool marks across the large flat areas, especially the sky and the ground.
- Seams where one piece is laid on another: the character sits on the card with a faint lip and a soft contact shadow, like a sticker pressed down.
- Letters are pressed into the surface, not printed on it — slightly rounded, slightly uneven, catching the light on one side.
- Small irregularities everywhere. Perfect symmetry looks moulded rather than modelled.
The build
- Sky: a flat panel of bright clay with visible texture, two or three cotton-textured clouds.
- The tag: a rounded rectangle with a thick coloured border and a cream inner card, its edge torn rather than cut, hung from two white rings on a woven ribbon that carries the printed line.
- The character at the left of the card, in exaggerated proportions, with a white outline like a sticker.
- The words at the right, largest line biggest, the rest pressed smaller beneath with light rules between.
- The ground: a band of textured grass across the foot carrying the props.
Nothing borrowed
The poster carries only what the fields name. No scan codes, no QR blocks, no platform bars, no search fields, no app furniture, no handles or logos belonging to anything real. If a slot has nothing to put in it, it stays empty.
Never
- ✕ any transparent, glass, mirrored or glossy surface
- ✕ a sharp corner, a knife edge, or a raised hairline
- ✕ a screen, scan code, platform bar or borrowed interface element
- ✕ printed rather than pressed lettering
- ✕ a flat area with no thumbprint or tool texture
- ✕ a real handle, logo or brand mark anywhere
The result
A poster you could have built on a table: one lump of colour for the sky, a tag with a torn edge, a character pressed on like a sticker — and not one thing in it that a pair of hands could not have made.
The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.
How to use it
- Copy the whole template with the button above.
- Replace the six FIELDS lines. In the second, say how a difficult object is modelled rather than what it is — a solid disc rather than a lens, a painted rectangle rather than a screen.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the poster.
- Look for anything shiny or see-through before shipping. One glass lens in an otherwise consistent scene is the thing that gives it away.
What you swap
- The character
- a round ginger cat in a yellow explorer's hat with a small canvas backpack, mid-stride, tail up
- What it is holding — modelled, not glass
- a magnifier made as a solid ring with an opaque pale disc inside it, no transparency and no highlight
- The words on the tag
- @THE CURIOUS CAT · BRAVE ENOUGH TO BE A · (CURIOUS) TRAVELLER · our backpack holds / curiosity and / the will to go
- The ribbon and its words
- a pale blue woven ribbon printed EXPLORE MORE, WORRY LESS running down it
- The props in the grass
- a small wooden signpost reading TRAVEL, a tree, a rounded rock
- The palette
- bright sky blue, warm orange tag, cream card, grass green
Before it runs
- A character with a simple silhouette. Clay has a minimum thickness, so thin limbs, whiskers and antennae cannot be modelled — they have to be pressed lines instead.
- Props you can imagine in plasticine. If an object only reads as itself when it is shiny or see-through, it needs redesigning before it goes in.
- Short words. Pressed lettering has a minimum stroke width, and small type turns to mush at this scale.
When to reach for it
When something should look made by hand rather than designed: a character introduction, a small brand, a children's range, a friendly announcement. Templates in this style describe the modelling beautifully and then ask for a magnifier, a screen or a scan code, all of which clay cannot be.
What changes
- One warm plasticine scene: a tag hung on a ribbon over a modelled sky, a character pressed on like a sticker, props in the grass beneath.
- Every object made of the same opaque material, so nothing is transparent, mirrored or knife-edged.
- A minimum radius on everything — clay has no points, and a single sharp corner reads as a 3D render wearing clay's clothes.
- Visible making: thumbprints in the flats, seams where one piece sits on another, letters pressed rather than printed.
- No scan codes, platform bars or borrowed interface furniture — the poster carries only what you name.
Pairs with
- Bolted to the SkyA mascot built as real signage — a face on a plate, one wider name plate under it, and visible hardware holding both to the pole. Six fields.
- Cut, Not FilledA copperplate-engraved city poster in one ink — where every tone is line density, nothing on the page is a flat fill, and the bare paper is a shape rather than a margin. Six fields.
- Every Bar Is a MultipleA barcode poster in two colours — with the code built on a base module, guard bars and a numeral row, so it reads as a scanned object rather than a stripe field. Five fields.