🎨 How to reuse any image style

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create perfectly consistent illustration styles using Gemini’s multimodal vision, a technique that lets you extract the visual DNA of any artwork and reuse it across new subjects.

🧰 Who is This For

• Designers creating consistent brand worlds

• Artists generating variations in the same style

• Creators making animated assets from still images

• Anyone who wants repeatable, studio-grade AI artwork

STEP 1: Capture Your Desired Style Reference

To maintain true consistency, you need a detailed style reference the AI can analyze. Start by exploring illustration libraries such as thiings.co is a great place to find unique visual styles. Choose an illustration with rich colors, textures, and lighting. Take a full-screen screenshot so every detail is included. Save the image locally; you’ll upload it to Gemini in the next step.

STEP 2: Use Gemini to Extract the Style Prompt

Open Gemini and start a new chat. Upload the screenshot you saved. Now instruct Gemini to act as a prompt engineer and break down the artwork into a structured, reusable prompt.

Use this instruction:

“Create a custom JSON prompt that will let me generate any object in exactly this style”

Gemini will return a full technical breakdown. This includes color theory, brush textures, composition rules, and rendering patterns. For consistency across future generations, the Nano Banana model is ideal because it’s specifically tuned for style retention.

STEP 3: Repurpose the Prompt for New Subjects

The JSON prompt you receive is essentially a “style container.” You can now apply that style to anything. Copy the full prompt and open a new Gemini image generation session (or your tool of choice). Find the part of the JSON describing the subject, usually under “subject,” “content,” or “description.” Replace the original object with your new idea.

Generate the image. The result will keep the exact same palette, lighting, textures, and artistic logic as your original reference, perfect for collections, characters, or brand systems.

STEP 4: Animate and Finalize with Midjourney

Once your illustration is consistent, you can bring it to life. Import the generated artwork into Midjourney’s animation tools or any video-focused AI. Add subtle motion, like a slow zoom, a gentle pan, or atmospheric effects such as drifting snow or light particles. This keeps the style intact while making the scene feel alive.

Your static illustration is now a polished animated asset, ready for marketing, storytelling, or full production workflows.

SECRET PROMPTS

1. Hyper-Detailed Photorealism (Cinematic/VFX)

This style focuses on extreme detail, gritty realism, complex lighting, and the high-fidelity rendering often seen in modern film visual effects (VFX).

{
  "style":Cinematic Photorealism / Hyper-Detail",
  "prompt_description": "An ultra-high-resolution, gritty, and technically precise photorealistic render, focusing on intricate material textures, complex subsurface scattering, and dramatic, cinematic lighting.",
  "style_keywords": [
    "Ultra Photorealistic",
    "8K resolution",
    "Cinematic lighting",
    "Subsurface scattering",
    "Depth of field",
    "Highly detailed textures",
    "Gritty realism",
    "VFX quality",
    "ZBrush details",
    "Unreal Engine 5 render",
    "Digital painting, hyper-detailed"
  ],
  "art_medium_and_render": [
    "High-resolution digital sculpt",
    "V-Ray render",
    "Octane render",
    "Shot on an Arri camera"
  ],
  "subject_details": [
    "A **[Your Subject Here]**",
    "In a **[Action/Context]**"
  ],

}

2. Japanese Woodblock Print (Ukiyo-e)

This style is based on the traditional Japanese art form, characterized by bold outlines, flat areas of color, dynamic compositions, and the distinctive texture of wood grain.

{
  "style": Traditional Japanese Woodblock Print (Ukiyo-e)",
  "prompt_description": "A 2D illustration inspired by the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition, featuring thick black outlines, bold flat colors, dynamic composition, and visible wood grain texture.",
  "style_keywords": [
    "Japanese Woodblock Print",
    "Ukiyo-e style",
    "2D illustration",
    "Thick black outlines",
    "Flat, limited color palette",
    "Hokusai style",
    "Dynamic composition",
    "Visible wood grain texture",
    "Washi paper texture",
    "Edo period art"
  ],
  "art_medium_and_render": [
    "Traditional woodcut illustration",
    "Screen print",
    "Block printing"
  ],
  "subject_details": [
    "A **[Your Subject Here]**",
    "In a **[Action/Context]**"
  ],
}

3. Watercolor Painting (Loose and Expressive)

This style focuses on the fluid, translucent, and often spontaneous nature of watercolor, characterized by soft edges, visible brushstrokes, and a generally lighter, more ethereal quality.

{
  "style": Loose Watercolor Painting",
  "prompt_description": "A vibrant and expressive watercolor painting, characterized by translucent washes, visible brushstrokes, soft edges, and the fluid nature of the medium, often with some white paper showing through.",
  "style_keywords": [
    "Watercolor painting",
    "Loose watercolor style",
    "Expressive brushstrokes",
    "Translucent washes",
    "Soft edges",
    "Wet-on-wet technique",
    "Textured paper",
    "Vibrant yet delicate colors",
    "Artistic rendering",
    "Traditional art medium"
  ],
  "art_medium_and_render": [
    "Hand-painted watercolor",
    "Digital watercolor effect",
    "Ink and wash"
  ],
  "subject_details": [
    "A **[Your Subject Here]**",
    "In a **[Action/Context]**"
  ],

}

THAT’S IT FOR TODAY

Thanks for making it to the end! I put my heart into every email I send, I hope you are enjoying it. Let me know your thoughts so I can make the next one even better!

See you tomorrow :)

- Dr. Alvaro Cintas