The Hand Needs a Thumb
A flat-cartoon poster where one enormous hand is the stage and tiny figures live in the palm — with the hand's anatomy and the size ratio both stated, because both go wrong quietly. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. A left hand carrying campers beside a right hand carrying a quay crew — thumb on the right in one, on the left in the other, correct for each. The quay run needed a second attempt: its first figures stood about twice a finger's width tall, which is exactly the drift the ratio exists to stop. Measured after the fix, its figures stand about level with a finger's width against roughly half in the camp run, so the contrast reads but the rule is met more strictly on the left.
Generated from this template with the fields shown above — four fingers and a thumb, the thumb along the right side as a left hand palm-up requires, exactly four figures rather than five, each standing well under a finger's width and each casting a small shadow on the palm. The reference's baseline failed all three at once, and the anatomy failure is the one worth naming: its hand ran straight from the little finger to the wrist with no thumb at all, and nothing about the drawing looked broken. Even fingers, plausible palm, correct shadows, and not a hand. It also drew five figures where four were asked for and made them about three times the stated size, which is the quiet way this poster loses the contrast it is built on. Measured on the finished pair: a finger is about 122 pixels wide in this run and the figures stand roughly half that; in the second run they come out about level with a finger's width, which is close to the rule rather than comfortably inside it.
Generated for this library
Input
Hand one open hand rising from the lower left, palm up
and slightly cupped, thumb clearly visible along
the left edge
Figures four only - one raising a tarp pole, one carrying
a folding chair, one blowing bubbles, one holding
a mug
Size about a twentieth of the hand's length
Type CITY CAMP in white bubble caps, ESCAPE THE STREET
beneath
Corners a cloud-shaped date box · four lines lower right
Palette bright sky blue, warm skin, four costume colours
Returned 1 poster · 2:3 · flat colour, thin black outline
hand four fingers and a thumb, the thumb along the left
edge, filling two thirds of the frame
figures four, tiny, each mid-task, each casting a small
soft shadow on the palm
scale a figure standing shorter than a finger is wide
type bubble caps top left, sub-line beneath, cloud box
with dates upper right
ground flat blue, white clouds with black outlinesYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1The hand, and its gesture
- 2The figures, and what each is doing
- 3How small they are
- 4The lettering
- 5The corner note and the footer lines
- 6The palette
The Hand Needs a Thumb
Produce ONE image, 2:3 portrait: a flat-cartoon poster with one enormous hand carrying tiny figures. 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 hand, and its gesture: {which hand, how posed, where the thumb is}
- The figures, and what each is doing: {how many, and their tasks}
- How small they are: {the ratio}
- The lettering: {the title, and the line under it}
- The corner note and the footer lines: {a date box, and some lines}
- The palette: {a ground, a skin, and costume colours}
The anatomy law
The hand has four fingers and a thumb. Five digits, and the thumb set opposite the fingers where a thumb actually sits.
This is the thing that goes wrong, and it goes wrong silently: a reference run of this style produced a lovely poster whose hand ran straight from the little finger to the wrist with no thumb at all. Nothing about the drawing looked broken — the palm was plausible, the fingers were even, the shadows were right — and the hand was not a hand.
So the fields say where the thumb is, and you count before shipping. Four fingers, one thumb, and the thumb on the correct side for the hand you asked for.
Fingers are evenly proportioned, the palm is broad enough to stand on, and the wrist leaves the frame rather than ending in a stump.
The scale law
The figures are the ratio the fields state, and the ratio is the poster.
Roughly a twentieth of the hand's length is right: a person standing shorter than a finger is wide. The pull is always to enlarge them so their clothes and faces read — and every step of enlargement takes the contrast away, until the picture is a group of people on a large pink surface.
Draw them small and let the poses carry them. Silhouette does the work at this size, so give each figure a clear, readable action rather than detail.
The figures
Exactly the number the fields name. Each one mid-task — raising, carrying, pouring, blowing, pitching — never standing and smiling at the viewer.
Each casts a small soft shadow on the palm. Without it they hover; with it they are standing on skin, which is the whole illusion.
They may cluster and interact. Nobody is cropped by a finger.
The style
- Flat colour with a thin black outline on everything: the hand, the figures, the clouds, the props.
- No gradients, no texture, no rendering. Volume comes from one very pale shadow tone on the palm and nothing else.
- Bright saturated ground — sky blue, yellow, coral, grass green — with rounded white cloud shapes scattered at different sizes, each outlined.
The type
- The title upper left in rounded bubble capitals, white filled with a heavy black outline, two lines if needed.
- The sub-line immediately beneath in bold dark sans, smaller, slightly overlapping.
- A cloud-shaped or rounded box at the upper right holding the date, its numerals large and in the accent colour.
- Three or four short lines at the lower right, small, each with a small mark before it.
Nothing invented
The gesture, the figures, their tasks, the dates and the lines all come from the fields. Do not add a figure, invent a date, or add a venue nobody named.
Never
- ✕ a hand missing its thumb, or with more or fewer than five digits
- ✕ figures larger than the stated ratio
- ✕ more or fewer figures than the fields name
- ✕ a figure without a shadow on the palm
- ✕ gradients, texture, or rendered shading
- ✕ a figure posed facing the viewer rather than working
- ✕ invented dates, venues or details
The result
A poster that reads in one look: a hand big enough to be a landscape, four people small enough to make it one, and five digits on it when you count.
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. Say in the first where the thumb is — it is the part that goes missing, and naming its position is what keeps it.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the poster.
- Count before shipping: five digits on the hand, and the figures you actually asked for. Both drift, and neither announces itself.
What you swap
- The hand, and its gesture
- one open hand rising from the lower left, palm up and slightly cupped, thumb clearly visible along the left edge
- The figures, and what each is doing
- four only — one raising a tarp pole, one carrying a folding chair, one blowing bubbles, one holding a mug
- How small they are
- each figure about a twentieth of the hand's length — shorter than one finger is wide
- The lettering
- CITY CAMP in white bubble caps with a heavy black outline, ESCAPE THE STREET beneath in bold dark sans
- The corner note and the footer lines
- a cloud-shaped box with the dates · four short lines at the lower right
- The palette
- bright sky blue ground, warm skin, four saturated costume colours, white clouds
Before it runs
- A gesture that gives the figures a floor. An open palm or cupped hand works; a fist or a pointing finger leaves nowhere to stand.
- Figures with something to do. Four people standing in a palm is a size comparison; four people pitching a tent in it is a poster.
- Willingness to keep them tiny. The temptation is to enlarge them so the costumes read, and that is exactly what kills the contrast.
When to reach for it
When an event wants warmth and a bit of scale-play: a festival, a market, a camp, a community day. Templates in this style describe the hand's gesture and the figures' costumes at length and never say the hand needs five digits or how small the people actually are.
What changes
- One bright flat poster: a giant hand filling most of the frame, tiny figures at work in the palm, bubble lettering above.
- The hand held to being a hand — four fingers and a thumb, in a gesture the fields name.
- A stated size ratio, so the figures stay small enough for the contrast to be the point rather than a detail.
- Figures that cast shadows on the palm, which is what makes them stand on it rather than float over it.
- Flat colour with a thin black outline throughout, no gradients or texture anywhere.
Pairs with
- Every Path ArrivesA full-bleed storybook world you can actually travel through — every route joining two named places, and three sizes of thing so the eye lands before it wanders. Five fields.
- Nothing Glows AloneA neon-lit night scene on near-black, where every light source is named with what it lights — so the colour lands on surfaces instead of floating as bright shapes. Five fields.
- Nothing Leaves the ShapeA whole landscape built inside one silhouette on bare ground — with the container closed, so the shape still reads as itself from across a room. Five fields.