Hands Out of Frame
A soft 3D character portrait in the art-toy idiom — built around choosing a pose that cannot go wrong, because the one thing these renders always break is named and never solved. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. A bob cropped at the chest with no hands in frame beside cropped curls with one flat hand on the chest — the two permitted answers to the same question, on an indigo ground and a rust one. The pair is the argument: the hand that is allowed is the hand that comes back right.
Generated from this template with the fields shown above — cropped at the chest with no hands in frame, eyes closed over a short level mouth, hair as a solid rounded form rather than strands, and the bone figure sitting a clear step lighter than the indigo ground the whole way round including the crown. Three materials read apart: matte skin, glossy resin hair, dry vinyl cloth. The reference is the clearest example in this library of a fault the source already knows about. Its prohibitions include avoid hand errors, and its own pose asks for the hands folded and interlocked in front of the chest — the single hardest thing to render. Its baseline duly returned merged fingers on both hands. Naming a failure does not prevent it, so this template offers three poses and forbids the rest. The second run settles the point: the same idiom, asked for one flat hand with fingers together, produced five correct digits. The pose was the problem, never the capability.
Generated for this library
Input
Character a young builder with a soft rounded bob in pale oat
Hands out of frame, below the crop
Expression eyes closed, mouth a short line, calm and thinking
Clothing an oversized crew-neck sweatshirt in warm bone
Materials skin matte ceramic, hair glossy resin, sweatshirt
soft matte vinyl
Ground a pale indigo ground, the figure a clear step
lighter than it at every edge
Returned 1 portrait · 3:4 · flat ground, soft studio light
pose cropped at the chest, no hands anywhere in frame
face eyes closed with a fine lash line, a short mouth, a
soft blush, nothing else
materials skin reading matte against glossy hair against dry
vinyl cloth - three surfaces, told apart by highlight
edge the figure lighter than the ground all the way round,
crown included, without any outline being drawn
light one soft key from the front left, a gentle falloff,
one quiet contact shadowYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1The character, and their hair
- 2What the hands do
- 3The expression
- 4The clothing
- 5The three materials
- 6The ground, and how the figure separates from it
Hands Out of Frame
Produce ONE image, 3:4 portrait: a soft 3D character bust in the art-toy idiom. 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, and their hair: {who they are, and the haircut} e.g. a young builder with a soft rounded bob in pale oat
- What the hands do: {out of frame, or one simple gesture} e.g. hands out of frame, below the crop
- The expression: {closed and calm} e.g. eyes closed, mouth a short line, calm and thinking
- The clothing: {one simple garment} e.g. an oversized crew-neck sweatshirt in warm bone
- The three materials: {skin, hair, cloth} e.g. skin matte ceramic, hair glossy resin, sweatshirt soft matte vinyl
- The ground, and how the figure separates from it: {a colour, and which way the figure steps against it} e.g. a pale indigo ground, the figure a clear step lighter than it at every edge
The hands law
Templates in this idiom list *avoid hand errors* among their prohibitions, and then ask for hands folded or interlocked in front of the chest — which is the single hardest thing to render and the one that fails most often. A reference baseline did exactly that and returned merged fingers on both hands.
Naming a failure does not prevent it. Choosing a pose does.
Take one of these and no others:
- Out of frame. Crop at the chest or the shoulders. Nothing to get wrong.
- One hand, flat. Resting against the chest or the cheek, palm flat, fingers together, seen from the back of the hand.
- One hand holding one simple object with a clear silhouette — a cup, a book, a small round thing — fingers together around it.
Never interlocked, never laced, never both hands touching each other, never fingers spread, never a hand seen palm-on with fingers apart.
The silhouette law
These portraits live in one colour family: a cream figure on a cream ground, a rose figure on a rose ground. That is the look, and it is also how the figure disappears.
The figure is a clear step lighter or darker than the ground, and it holds at every point of the outline — including the crown of the head, which is where it goes first because hair takes the light softly and the background does not.
No outline, no rim light, no drop shadow doing the job. It is a value decision, made in the field.
The face
- Eyes closed. A fine lash line, nothing more. No open eyes, no pupils, no catchlights.
- Mouth a short line, level or very slightly down.
- A soft blush on each cheek, no nose to speak of, no eyebrows or the faintest suggestion of them.
- The expression is calm, not happy: thinking, resting, listening. Never smiling, never surprised, never cute.
Proportion
Head a little larger than life, neck slender, shoulders simplified, body reduced to a soft mass. Cropped at the chest. The head and hair should occupy roughly the upper half of the frame.
Hair is a solid rounded form with a few large sculpted locks — never individual strands, never wispy, never flyaway.
Materials
Three, and they must be visibly different:
- Skin: matte, soft, faintly waxy. No shine.
- Hair: glossy or satin resin, holding a clear soft highlight.
- Cloth: dry matte vinyl or felt, with soft rounded folds and no weave.
If all three read the same, the figure is one lump of plastic.
Light and ground
One soft key from the front, slightly to one side. Gentle falloff, no hard shadow, one quiet contact shadow under the mass. A single flat ground colour — no scene, no props, no text, no pattern, no vignette.
Never
- ✕ interlocked, laced or touching hands; spread fingers
- ✕ open eyes, a smile, or an exaggerated expression
- ✕ a figure the same lightness as its ground at any point
- ✕ individual hair strands or wispy flyaways
- ✕ one material used for skin, hair and cloth alike
- ✕ a background scene, prop, pattern or caption
- ✕ realistic human proportions or photographic skin
The result
A character you could put on a shelf: quiet, closed-eyed, made of three materials you could name by touch, standing clear of its own background — and posed so that nothing in the picture is a thing that usually goes wrong.
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. Decide the second one first — out of frame, or one flat simple gesture — and never anything interlocked.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the portrait.
- Check the crown of the head against the background before shipping. If they are the same lightness, the figure has started to dissolve into its own ground.
What you swap
- The character, and their hair
- a young builder with a soft rounded bob in pale oat
- What the hands do
- hands out of frame, below the crop
- The expression
- eyes closed, mouth a short line, calm and thinking
- The clothing
- an oversized crew-neck sweatshirt in warm bone
- The three materials
- skin matte ceramic, hair glossy resin, sweatshirt soft matte vinyl
- The ground, and how the figure separates from it
- a pale indigo ground, the figure a clear step lighter than it at every edge
Before it runs
- A pose you have decided about the hands. Choosing this deliberately is the whole difference between a usable character and a re-roll.
- A ground colour you are willing to hold the figure against. Same-family colours are the look, and they are also how the silhouette disappears.
- Three materials that genuinely differ. One material everywhere makes a lump; four makes a costume.
When to reach for it
When a brand or a story needs a face rather than a mark: an IP character, an app's mascot, an author avatar, a collectible figure. Templates in this style list 'avoid hand errors' among their prohibitions and then pose the character with fingers interlocked, which is the one pose guaranteed to produce them.
What changes
- One calm character bust in ceramic-and-resin materials on a single flat ground — the art-toy look, quiet rather than cute.
- The pose is chosen so hands are either absent or trivially simple, which is the only reliable way to avoid the failure this idiom is known for.
- The silhouette separates from the ground by value at every point, so a cream figure on a cream field still reads as a shape.
- Three materials, clearly told apart, so the figure is not one undifferentiated lump of vinyl.
- A closed expression — eyes shut, mouth a short line — which is what makes these portraits restful instead of blank.
Pairs with
- Fur Over Every EdgeA plush creature character rendered full-length — held to the one thing that decides whether it reads as fur or as vinyl with fur printed on it: what happens where the coat meets anything hard. Six fields.
- Every Control Says Where It IsA hyper-skeuomorphic app icon of a real device, front-on — with every control carrying an indicator and every indicator agreeing about what state the thing is in. Five fields.
- One Subject, Three SignsA soft-3D app icon on white — one object and exactly three signs around it, counted strictly, with one accent colour and a silhouette that survives being small. Six fields.