Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech

Content prompt (you can give your own instructions for this; this is just for illustration)

Full body shot of a person running on the road with a laptop in one hand and coffee in the other, coffee slightly spilling. Indian male in modern attire - grey jeans, black tshirt, olive loafers.

Illustration Style options [we will keep growing this list]:

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Naive Textured Editorial Character

Create a full-body character illustration of [CHARACTER / PERSON] doing [POSE / ACTION], wearing [CLOTHING / ACCESSORIES], in a naive hand-drawn editorial illustration style. Use deliberately simplified, slightly awkward anatomy with an oversized torso, long chunky limbs, small head, broad shoulders, and subtly exaggerated proportions. The character should feel charmingly imperfect rather than anatomically realistic. Keep the pose stiff-but-expressive, with the silhouette doing most of the storytelling. Construct the character from large flat colour shapes with almost no conventional shading. Use rough, dry gouache, coloured-pencil and wax-crayon textures, with visible paper grain, uneven pigment coverage, scratchy marks and softly imperfect edges. Let the colouring feel handmade rather than digitally polished. Draw facial features with extreme economy: tiny dot or almond-shaped eyes, a simple geometric nose, short mouth line, minimal ears and only a few marks for hair or facial hair. Do not render realistic facial anatomy. Hands and feet should also be simplified and slightly naive. Use thin, loose coloured-pencil lines selectively rather than heavy black outlines. Add sparse hand-drawn marks for body hair, fabric detail, folds or texture. Avoid outlining every shape. Keep clothing highly graphic: bold stripes, simple checks, flat colour blocks or one uncomplicated pattern. Let accessories such as hats, glasses, bags or shoes become slightly exaggerated visual accents. Use a muted retro palette of 4–6 colours: dusty peach, faded red, powder blue, cream, mustard, muted green or similarly softened colours. Avoid highly saturated digital colours. Place the character relatively large and centrally on a flat warm cream / pale yellow textured background, with generous empty space and no detailed environment unless required. The background should resemble slightly mottled, aged drawing paper. Overall feeling: playful, deadpan, quirky, handmade, mid-century-meets-contemporary editorial illustration, with intentionally imperfect proportions and tactile analogue texture. Avoid: photorealism, realistic anatomy, smooth vector edges, polished digital gradients, 3D modelling, cinematic lighting, dramatic shadows, detailed facial features, glossy surfaces, complex backgrounds, heavy black ink outlines, anime styling, Disney-like expressions, excessive detail. Maintain the same visual language across every illustration: tiny head, oversized blocky torso, long simplified limbs, restrained facial expression, flat shapes, rough crayon/gouache texture, warm paper background and visibly handmade imperfections. Vary the character’s body type, clothing, age, hairstyle and pose without changing the underlying illustration style.

Naive Flat Marker Doodle

Create a deliberately crude, playful editorial illustration drawn as if with a thick felt-tip marker. Use one dominant cobalt-blue line colour for almost all outlines and internal marks. Add only a few flat colour fills: vivid orange for the main clothing/skin accents, pale warm grey for trousers or neutral areas, and a small hot-pink accent if useful. Keep the background plain warm off-white. Draw the figure with chunky, wobbly, imperfect blue contour lines of nearly uniform thickness. Anatomy should be simplified, slightly awkward and cartoonishly proportioned, with oversized clothing shapes, simple hands, blocky shoes and an intentionally naive silhouette. Do not make the body anatomically realistic. The face should be extremely reduced: simple geometric glasses, a triangular or hooked nose, tiny dot-like eyes, a crude moustache/beard shape, and very few other marks. Do not render facial planes, skin texture, cheekbones, hair strands or realistic expression. Use flat unmodulated colour only. No shading, no highlights, no gradients, no shadows, no lighting, no texture, no volumetric modelling, no realistic perspective and no polished vector smoothness. Clothing folds should be represented by only a few thick blue curved lines. The drawing should feel like a quirky contemporary magazine doodle made quickly with a marker: flat, graphic, loose, slightly clumsy, charming and confidently imperfect. Preserve large areas of empty background. Important: do not turn this into a polished cartoon, comic illustration, vector character, 3D character or realistic portrait. Do not use black outlines except for tiny facial accents if absolutely necessary. Keep the entire image visually two-dimensional.

Ultra-Flat Minimal Crayon Sketch

Create a very simple hand-drawn illustration using blunt wax crayon and soft coloured pencil on warm white paper. Keep the drawing deliberately flat, sparse and unfinished. Build the subject from only a few rough colour patches and crude contour marks, with no attempt to model three-dimensional form. Use one flat local colour per area: one skin tone, one hair colour, one shirt colour, one trouser colour, one shoe colour. Do not add highlights, shadows, gradients, realistic folds, facial planes, depth cues or volumetric shading. Faces should be reduced to a few economical marks for glasses, eyebrows, nose, mouth, hair and beard; keep them recognizable but minimally described. Clothing should be simple blocky shapes with rough crayon texture, not rendered fabric. Hands, feet and objects should be schematic and slightly awkward rather than anatomically polished. Let white paper remain visible inside the figure and around most edges. Use very few strokes overall, with broad dry marks, uneven pressure and broken edges. Keep the background almost entirely blank, with at most a few faint road marks or gestural lines. The result should look like a quick editorial doodle made in 2–3 minutes with cheap crayons on paper: flat, naïve, incomplete, tactile and understated. Absolutely avoid 3D modelling, realistic anatomy, facial shading, skin texture, detailed beard texture, clothing folds, lighting, perspective depth, smooth digital rendering, cross-hatching and polished illustration.

Flat Scribble-Pen Editorial Illustration

Create a deliberately flat, naïve hand-drawn illustration using fine felt-tip pen and coloured-pencil scribbles on plain warm-white paper. Draw the subject with simple, slightly awkward contour lines and fill each area using loose overlapping scribble strokes in mostly one local colour per area. Treat the face, clothing, hair, skin, laptop, coffee cup and shoes as flat graphic regions rather than three-dimensional forms. Do not use realistic lighting, highlights, gradients, tonal modelling, cast shadows, volumetric shading or sculpted facial planes. Use only very small changes in scribble density where necessary for readability. Keep anatomy simplified and slightly cartoonish, with minimal facial detail and a handmade amateur-sketchbook quality. Let white paper show freely between strokes. Hair and beard should be clusters of black or grey scribbled lines, not realistically rendered strands. Clothing should be broad areas of repeated same-colour pen strokes, without folds or fabric shading. Objects should remain flat and diagrammatic, with little or no perspective. Use 5–7 simple colours and add a few loose abstract scribble patches in the background. The result should look like a person rapidly drawn and coloured with cheap felt-tip pens in a notebook: flat, raw, imperfect, charming and visibly hand-made. Avoid realism, depth, 3D volume, smooth shading, chiaroscuro, highlights, reflections, realistic skin rendering, detailed textures, polished anatomy, cinematic lighting and photorealistic perspective.

Expressive Wax-Crayon Editorial Illustration

Create a deliberately flat, rough hand-drawn editorial illustration made with thick wax crayon and chunky coloured-pencil strokes on warm white textured paper. Build every person and object from simple flat colour regions filled with broad, clearly visible directional strokes. Use one local colour per surface rather than multiple shades: one skin colour, one shirt colour, one trouser colour, one hair colour, etc. Leave small gaps of white paper between strokes and around forms. Draw anatomy using simple angular silhouettes and crude broken contours. Keep faces extremely simplified: only a few marks for the nose, eye, mouth, hair or beard. Do not render facial planes, cheekbones, muscles, fabric folds, reflections, highlights or realistic shadows. Hands and feet should also be simplified graphic shapes rather than anatomically detailed. Use large chunky crayon marks rather than fine scribbling or cross-hatching. Individual strokes should be obvious, approximately parallel within each colour region, with imperfect edges and inconsistent coverage. Do not blend colours. Surround the subject with a large irregular field of one dominant saturated colour, drawn using repeated broad crayon strokes. The background should look manually scribbled-in rather than painted or digitally filled, with white paper showing between some strokes and around the outer perimeter. Keep the composition bold and graphic, with the subject clearly separated from the background by a thin irregular white-paper gap. Use only 4–6 colours total. Prioritise silhouette, gesture and movement over anatomical accuracy or detail. The final result should resemble a quick handmade magazine illustration created with blunt wax crayons on paper, not a polished digital drawing. Strictly avoid: realistic shading, tonal modelling, gradients, 3D volume, detailed facial rendering, realistic skin texture, tiny pen strokes, dense cross-hatching, smooth digital fills, painterly blending, sophisticated perspective, photographic lighting, highlights, shadows, detailed clothing folds, vector cleanliness or polished line art.

Minimal Watercolour Street-Style Illustration

Create a flat minimal watercolour editorial illustration of [SUBJECT / ACTION / SCENE]. Construct people, objects and surroundings from broad, mostly flat translucent watercolour shapes, using one simple wash for each major area. Use minimal tonal variation, soft pigment blooms, dry-brush marks and visible cold-press paper grain, with no realistic shading, highlights, shadows or three-dimensional modelling. Define forms using faint, incomplete pencil or coloured-pencil contours rather than strong ink outlines. Simplify faces, anatomy and objects into loose editorial shorthand, allowing the silhouette, pose and composition to communicate the idea. Use slightly elongated, naive proportions, relaxed shapes and very few folds or internal details. Keep all necessary props recognizable but graphically simple. Work with a restricted palette of [COLOURS], combining two or three muted colours with soft neutrals and one restrained accent. Place the main subject relatively small within a [ASPECT RATIO] canvas and surround it with abundant warm-white negative space on lightly textured paper. Include only the minimum environmental marks needed to establish the setting. Avoid photorealism, detailed facial features, anatomical modelling, strong outlines, gradients, cast shadows, dramatic lighting, excessive texture, fabric wrinkles, polished vector edges, complex scenery, typography, logos, borders and decorative background elements.

Textured Minimal Editorial Linework

Create a sparse crayon editorial linework illustration of [SUBJECT / ACTION / SCENE] on a pure white background. Show [CHARACTER OR OBJECT DETAILS] using very thin, loose and slightly uneven black pen lines, simplified anatomy, long and slightly naive proportions, and a clear expressive silhouette. Reduce faces to minimal editorial shorthand: a tiny eye mark, simple nose and restrained mouth, with no detailed portrait rendering. Leave exposed skin plain white, defined only by sparse black contours. Build clothing and objects from simple flat shapes with very few seams, folds or internal details. Apply a light, even wax-crayon or risograph speckle only inside coloured areas, using a restricted palette of [COLOURS] and slightly imperfect handmade edges. Keep the main subject relatively small within a [ASPECT RATIO] canvas, surrounded by abundant clean white negative space. Include only the props essential to the action, simplified but immediately recognizable. Avoid thick comic outlines, skin-colour fills, detailed eyes or teeth, oversized heads, dense scratchy textures, excessive wrinkles, gradients, shadows, scenery, polished vector styling, typography, logos, borders and unnecessary decorative elements.

Subscribe to https://learnstory99.substack.com/subscribe where we notify you when we update our existing frameworks and insights around storytelling, marketing and brand-building.

Story99.com is a Branding & Storytelling Consultancy for B2B, Tech & Deeptech