character-portrait

character-portrait — Locked Bust for Dialogue UI

This skill produces ONE polished character portrait — bust or shoulders-up framing, neutral or stylized background, designed to drop into a dialogue UI, character-select screen, or lore card. It is the opposite of summer:2d-assets/concept-art: concept art explores; this skill commits.

The single biggest failure mode is inconsistency across a cast. Generating five party members one at a time without a locked anchor produces five images that look like they're from five different games — different lighting, different angle, different palette, different rendering style. This skill makes you write a locked anchor suffix the first time and re-use it verbatim for every subsequent portrait.

If the user is still exploring the look, this is the wrong skill — route to summer:2d-assets/concept-art first, lock a direction, then come back here. The summer:asset-pipeline/asset-strategy meta-router asks "Quick check — exploring the look (3-4 variants for art direction) or generating a final character portrait for dialogue UI?" to disambiguate.

When to use

• "Generate a portrait for the merchant NPC."
• "I need a character-select image for the four playable heroes."
• "Make a lore-card image of the king."
• "Add a VN-style dialogue portrait for Aria."
• The cast is locked and the visual direction is locked; you're producing finals.

When NOT to use

• The user is still exploring → summer:2d-assets/concept-art.
• The user wants pixel art → summer:2d-assets/pixel-art.
• The user wants a full-body 3D model → summer:asset-pipeline/asset-strategy.
• The user wants 4+ animated expressions of the same character — generate one base portrait here, then use img2img with the base as referenceImageUrl for each expression.

Steps

1. Read or establish the locked anchor

Check .summer/portrait-anchor.md first.

Read .summer/portrait-anchor.md

If it doesn't exist, this is the first portrait in the cast — you must define the anchor now. Ask the user (or infer from .summer/GameSoul.md):

• Framing: bust (chest up) or shoulders-up?
• Angle: straight-on, three-quarter left, three-quarter right?
• Lighting: soft front, dramatic side, rim-lit, golden-hour?
• Background: flat color, soft gradient, painterly blur, in-world environment?
• Rendering style: painterly, anime, semi-realistic, line-art-with-flat-color?

Write the anchor to .summer/portrait-anchor.md:

## Portrait anchor (re-use verbatim for every cast member)

framing: bust, shoulders to crown of head visible
angle: three-quarter view, slight turn to character's left
lighting: soft warm key from upper right, cool fill from left, gentle rim
background: muted painterly gradient, dark teal to deep brown, no scene detail
style: semi-realistic painterly, soft edges, oil-painting feel
aspect: portrait_4_3

Every subsequent portrait in this cast appends the anchor to the prompt verbatim. Do not edit the anchor mid-cast unless the user explicitly says "I want the new ones to look different."

2. Search for an existing portrait

summer_search_assets(query="<character name> portrait", filter={ kind: "image" })

Reuse beats regenerate. If the user wants to iterate on an existing one, pull its URL and pass it as referenceImageUrl for img2img.

3. Build the prompt — character + anchor

Pattern:

<character description>. <anchor framing/angle/lighting/background/style>

The character description should include: identity (age, build, hair, distinctive features), expression, costume/equipment, any signature prop. Keep it under 60 words including the anchor.

4. Confirm and call

Generating Aria the witch portrait — 1 image, ~$0.02, model nano-banana-2, anchor locked from .summer/portrait-anchor.md. OK?

summer_generate_image(
  prompt="Aria, young witch, mid-twenties, pale skin, long black hair with silver streak, sharp green eyes, half-smile, wearing dark indigo robes with silver embroidery, raven on shoulder. <anchor verbatim>",
  model="nano-banana-2",
  style="none",
  options={ image_size: "portrait_4_3" }
)

style: "none" because the anchor's "semi-realistic painterly" already specifies style; the preset would fight it.

5. Import and wire into UI

summer_import_from_url(
  url="<fileUrl from generation>",
  path="res://ui/portraits/aria.png"
)

For dialogue UI nodes, wire the texture into a TextureRect:

summer_set_resource_property(
  nodePath="/root/UI/DialogueBox/PortraitRect",
  resourceProperty="texture",
  value="res://ui/portraits/aria.png"
)

For character-select with multiple portraits, name files consistently: aria.png, borin.png, cael.png, dara.png. Index-able from code via "res://ui/portraits/%s.png" % character_id.

6. Iterate (img2img) instead of regenerating from scratch

If the user wants the portrait tweaked ("smaller smile", "darker robes"), use img2img with the existing image as referenceImageUrl. Preserves identity and lighting.

summer_generate_image(
  prompt="<original prompt> with a smaller, more subtle smile",
  referenceImageUrl="<previous fileUrl>",
  model="nano-banana-2",
  style="none"
)

Prompt patterns

Goal	Prompt skeleton (subject part only — append anchor verbatim)	Why
Generic NPC	<name>, <age> <build>, <hair>, <eyes>, <expression>, wearing <costume>	Identity-first; no scene context
Hero / protagonist	<name>, <age> <build>, <hair>, <distinctive feature>, confident <expression>, wearing <signature outfit>, holding <signature prop>	Adds prop for memorability
Antagonist	<name>, <imposing detail>, <unsettling expression>, wearing <costume with menacing detail>, <signature scar/mark>	Antagonists need visual asymmetry
Lore card / king	<name>, <age>, regal <expression>, wearing <ornate detail>, <crown/insignia>, formal portrait pose	Formal pose overrides anchor's three-quarter
Expression variant	<previous prompt> with <new expression: angry / surprised / sad / laughing> + referenceImageUrl: <base portrait>	img2img preserves identity
Younger / older variant	<character> as a <child / elder> + referenceImageUrl: <base>	For flashback / time-skip portraits

Bad prompts (and why)

Bad	Failure mode
cool warrior portrait	No identity, no anchor. Returns generic stock art.
the witch but make her sad (no img2img ref)	Without referenceImageUrl, you get a different witch who is sad. Identity drift.
Anchor inconsistent across cast	Each portrait looks like a different game. The cast doesn't read as a cast.
full body portrait	"Portrait" implies bust. If you want full body, say so explicitly AND switch to image_size: "portrait_4_3" framed full-body — but that's a different asset class; consider concept-art or 3D pipeline.
transparent background for a painterly portrait	Painterly + transparent fails on most models. Use a flat or gradient background, then alpha-cut in an editor if you must.

Anti-patterns

• No anchor file. Every cast member generated ad-hoc looks unrelated. Define the anchor on portrait #1, re-use for the rest of the cast.
• Editing the anchor mid-cast. If you change lighting from "warm key" to "dramatic side" halfway through, the cast splits visually. Either commit to the change and regenerate everyone, or stick with the anchor.
• Regenerating from scratch when img2img would do. Identity drifts every regen. Iterate via referenceImageUrl.
• Using the portrait as a 3D reference. Portraits have dramatic lighting, painterly backgrounds, and cropped framing — all of which corrupt 3D generation. For 3D, generate a separate clean white-bg full-body T-pose via summer:asset-pipeline/asset-strategy.
• Using style: "realistic" or "cartoon" when the anchor already names a style. The preset overrides the anchor.

Edge cases

• Character has a non-human silhouette (lizardfolk, demon, robot). The anchor still applies — framing, lighting, background, rendering style. Only the subject description changes. Verify the model can hold the silhouette under "bust framing" — some models default to humanoid.
• Player wants to swap costumes mid-game. Generate one base portrait per costume (aria_traveler.png, aria_robes.png, aria_armored.png) and switch by index. Use img2img from the base for consistency.
• Cast of 12+ characters. Anchor discipline gets harder as fatigue sets in. Print the anchor as a header in your generation script and don't write any prompt without it.
• User wants the portrait to "read at small size" (32×32 in a portrait list). That's pixel-art territory; route to summer:2d-assets/pixel-art.

Fallback (no MCP)

Print the prompt and the call:

summer_generate_image(prompt="<character + anchor>", model="nano-banana-2", style="none", options={ image_size: "portrait_4_3" })

Tell the user to run via the Summer dashboard, then summer_import_from_url the result to res://ui/portraits/<name>.png.

Handoff

After the portrait is wired:

• More cast members → re-invoke this skill with the same anchor. Don't redefine.
• Expression variants → re-invoke with referenceImageUrl set to the base portrait.
• Pixel-art version of the same character → summer:2d-assets/pixel-art.
• 3D model of the same character → summer:asset-pipeline/asset-strategy (the portrait is NOT a usable 3D reference; generate a separate T-pose).
• Dialogue system wiring → summer:scene-composition for the UI hierarchy.

See also

• summer:2d-assets/concept-art — explore the look first if not yet locked.
• summer:asset-pipeline/asset-strategy — meta-router and the 3D pipeline.
• summer:scene-composition — wiring the portrait into a dialogue UI scene.
• references/mcp-tools-reference.md — summer_generate_image parameter schema.