Sticker Sheet

/sticker-sheet — Hand-painted gouache sticker-sheet illustration

This skill produces a single sheet of roughly 20 themed objects rendered as hand-painted gouache stickers, scattered loosely across pure white. Every piece is a curated little collection — desk objects, kitchen items, travel essentials, plants, self-care things — painted with flat brushy gouache fills, overlaid with wobbly hand-drawn ink, and dotted with small decorative marks. The recipe is locked; only the theme and the object list vary.

Prompt interpretation

The user typically supplies a short theme seed — usually a setting or activity ("a cozy kitchen breakfast", "weekend travel essentials", "plant-lover indoor jungle", "Sunday self-care reset"). It is your job to brainstorm and expand it into a concrete object list of ~18-22 items. Do not stop to confirm. Imagine the collection, then run.

For each invocation:

1. Take the seed. Note the theme, mood, time-of-day if given, any specific object the user named.
2. Imagine the collection. What are the iconic items someone with this theme would gather on a journal page? What's the hero object, what are the supporting cast, what's the small surprise (the rubber ducky, the vinyl record, the single croissant)?
3. Set the three dials (theme, object list, accent palette weighting) — see "Variable axes" below.
4. Keep every other axis locked. Medium, palette range, layout style, ink handling, mood — never vary.

Bias toward concrete, lived-in details: a striped mug rather than "a mug", a strawberry-jam jar with a handwritten label rather than "a jar", a croissant with visible flake marks rather than "a pastry". The sheet should feel hand-assembled, not auto-generated.

Locked style axes (NEVER vary)

Medium

• Opaque gouache on white paper. Flat brushy color fills with visible paint texture and small streaks where the brush lifts.
• Wobbly hand-drawn black ink linework laid OVER the color — slightly imperfect, scratchy, traced loosely over the painted shape rather than perfectly aligned. The ink defines silhouettes and adds interior detail.
• Decorative ink marks on every object: dots, tiny hatches, squiggles, tiny stars, small line patterns, hand-lettered labels, scribble textures. Every single object carries some kind of small interior detail in ink.
• NOT watercolor wash (no transparent bleeds). NOT digital vector. NOT photorealistic. NOT clean cartoon outline. NOT 3D-shaded or gradient-rendered.

Palette (saturated, not pastel)

• Bright coral / terracotta-red — primary warm accent (mugs, sweaters, jam jars, lampshades)
• Mustard yellow — secondary warm (lamps, bags, kettle, sunflowers)
• Sage green — primary cool warm (plants, vases, books)
• Dusty pink — soft accent (face masks, slippers, sweaters)
• Navy blue — anchor (suitcases, sneakers, sweaters, book spines)
• Cream / warm off-white — paper, ceramic, page backgrounds inside objects
• Warm brown — wood, cardboard, vinyl sleeves, baskets

Avoid pastel-only output (faded mint, beige-on-beige), neon, magenta, pure black fills, gradients, airbrush blends. Colors should read punchy like real gouache, not muted lifestyle-stock.

Composition

• Vertical aspect (e.g. 1024 × 1536 / 9:16).
• Pure white background. No backdrop color, no paper texture filling the bleed, no scene.
• ~18-22 small objects floating freely, scattered across the sheet like a real sticker pack.
• Varied sizes — a few "hero" objects 1.5-2x the size of supporting items.
• Each object tilted at a slight playful angle — never aligned to a strict grid.
• Breathing room between objects — they should not overlap or merge.
• NO drop shadows. Objects sit on white, not on the page.
• NO scene context — no shelf, no desk, no floor. Just objects on white.
• NO human figures of any kind — no people, no faces, no portraits, no family photos with figures, no character stickers, no figurines, no avatar badges, no person silhouettes. The sheet is a collection of objects. (Small animal characters — a cat, a duck, a bird — are fine as a playful surprise; they are not human figures.) If a brief seems to imply a person (e.g. "a framed family photo", "a passport photo"), substitute an object equivalent (a framed botanical print, a passport with only an ink seal visible).

Mood

• Cheerful, cozy, lifestyle-journal warm.
• The vibe of a curated journal spread, a print-and-cut sticker book, or a hand-lettered packing list.

Variable axes (the dials you set per sheet)

1. Theme — what the collection is

Strong picks:

• Cozy work-from-home desk (laptop, mug, headphones, plants, sticky notes, calendar...)
• Cozy kitchen breakfast (toaster, kettle, French press, croissant, jam, eggs, sourdough...)
• Weekend travel essentials (suitcase, camera, passport, sunglasses, sun hat, sneakers, postcard...)
• Plant-lover indoor jungle (monstera, snake plant, cacti, watering can, pruning shears, terracotta pots...)
• Sunday self-care reset (bath salts, candle, face mask, slippers, teacup, yoga mat, lavender...)
• Cozy reading nook (paperbacks, tea, bookmark, glasses, blanket, lamp, cat...)
• Stationery + journaling kit (notebooks, washi tape, pens, stickers, paperclips, ruler...)
• Camping weekend (tent, lantern, thermos, marshmallows, hiking boots, compass, trail map...)
• Holiday season cozy (mug of cocoa, knit gloves, ornament, cookie, pinecone, candle, scarf...)
• Picnic in the park (basket, sandwich, lemonade, blanket, fruit bowl, frisbee, paperback...)

Each theme should pick a hero object (the laptop, the suitcase, the kettle) and let the others orbit it.

2. Object list — the curated ~20

Brainstorm a list of 18-22 items that someone with this theme would gather. Aim for:

• 2-3 hero objects (large, central, instantly readable)
• 8-10 supporting cast (medium-size functional items)
• 5-7 small accents (tiny details: a sprig of rosemary, a sticky note, a key, a coin, a pen)
• 1-2 playful surprises (the rubber ducky, the vinyl record, the single croissant, the cat) — the thing that makes the sheet feel alive

For each item, picture one specific concrete detail (a striped mug, a handwritten jam label, a folded knit sweater, a vinyl record in a cream sleeve). Vagueness flattens the result.

3. Accent palette weighting — which colors lead

The palette is locked, but the proportions shift with theme:

• Kitchen / breakfast → mustard + coral + cream + warm brown lead; navy minimal
• Travel → navy + mustard + warm brown lead; coral + sage support
• Plants / jungle → sage + terracotta + cream lead; coral + mustard minimal
• Self-care → dusty pink + sage + cream lead; coral as the one warm pop
• Desk / work → mustard + sage + coral + navy evenly distributed

Pick a weighting that fits the theme — don't paint a self-care sheet in mustard-and-navy or a travel sheet in pink.

Reference images (the locked set)

Four canonical pieces anchor this style. Use them as visual references when prompting an image model — pass at least one as an image input where the model supports image-to-image.

Prompt recipe

When constructing a prompt, follow this structure. Adapt the bracketed slots; keep everything else verbatim.

A hand-painted GOUACHE sticker-sheet illustration. Flat brushy gouache color fills with visible paint texture — NO 3D shading, NO gradients. Wobbly hand-drawn black ink linework laid OVER the color, slightly imperfect and scratchy, with small decorative ink marks on every object (dots, tiny hatches, squiggles, tiny stars, small line patterns, hand-lettered labels).

Theme: [theme name in one phrase].

Roughly 20 small floating objects scattered across pure white background like a real sticker sheet, each tilted at a slight playful angle, varied sizes, breathing room between them, NO drop shadows, NO scene context.

Include the following ~20 items: [comma-separated object list with concrete details — e.g. "a chrome toaster with toast popping up, a whistling enamel kettle with steam swirl, a French press half-full of coffee, a striped coffee mug, ..."].

Palette (punchy saturated, NOT muted pastels): [palette weighting for this theme — name 3-4 colors that lead, then 2-3 that support]. Lead colors: [...]. Support: [...].

Vary sizes and rotations. Cheerful cozy lifestyle journal mood. Same charming wobbly hand-painted feel as a real artist's sheet.

Model guidance

This style is generated on the nano-banana-2 family of image-to-image models (fal-ai/nano-banana-2/edit), which supersedes plain nano-banana on fal. Nano-banana-2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) preserves the thick brushy ink linework, wobbly hand-drawn quality, and flat gouache fills that the style requires, and accepts up to 14 reference images for compositing.

Avoid OpenAI GPT-Image models for this style. Side-by-side tests on GPT-Image-1.5 showed it returns muted pastel output with thin clean lines and faint 3D shading — even with a strong reference and input-fidelity high. The look ends up "lifestyle stock" rather than "hand-painted journal". GPT-Image-2 has not been retested here, but the underlying photographic-fidelity bias is unlikely to have changed.

When the chosen model supports image-to-image, always pass ref-desk.jpg as the primary reference (it is the canonical anchor with the broadest palette and densest composition). Optionally pass a theme-aligned secondary reference (ref-kitchen.jpg, ref-travel.jpg, ref-plants.jpg) when the brief matches that theme family.

When the model is text-only (no image input), the prompt recipe above is sufficient but expect more drift from the locked style; prefer an i2i model if available.

Evaluation checklist

Inspect each generated sheet against the locked axes before accepting:

• Surface reads as opaque gouache — flat brushy fills with paint texture, not gradients or 3D
• Black ink linework is wobbly and hand-drawn, laid OVER color, slightly imperfect
• Every object carries a small interior ink detail (dots, hatches, squiggle, lettering)
• Palette is punchy and saturated, not muted/pastel
• ~18-22 objects, varied sizes, slight rotations, breathing room
• Pure white background, no scene, no shelf, no drop shadows
• Theme reads instantly from the object collection
• At least one small playful surprise in the sheet (the unexpected item)
• Mood reads as cheerful cozy journal, not lifestyle-stock
• No human figures, faces, or portraits anywhere on the sheet

If a generation fails on two or more checks, regenerate rather than ship it. Re-running with the same reference + a tighter object list usually fixes drift.

Anti-patterns (what to reject)

• Muted pastel / faded palette — should be punchy saturated gouache
• Thin clean digital outlines — must be wobbly hand-drawn ink with paint texture
• 3D shading, gradients, airbrush blends — must be flat fills only
• Drop shadows under objects — they sit on pure white, never shadowed
• Scene context (a shelf, a desk, a floor) — objects float freely
• Object count too low (under 15) or too high (over 25) — aim for ~20
• Objects perfectly aligned to a grid — each should tilt at its own angle
• "Lifestyle stock" mood — should feel hand-assembled and journal-warm
• More than 2 generic objects in a row without an ink detail — every object needs its own small marks
• Any human figure, face, portrait, or person-shaped sticker — the sheet is objects only (small animal characters are fine; humans are not)