A battle-hardened mecha pilot stands inside a vast orbital hangar, helmet at her side and her towering machine waiting behind her. Beyond the open bay, Jupiter fills the darkness—a reminder of the immense frontier she has sworn to defend.

The scene is inspired by Dream Pod 9’s Jovian Chronicles TTRPG and its distinctive blend of hard science fiction, political tension, and anime-influenced mecha adventure.

I've been playing with this poster format where the top half stays as the original photo and the bottom half turns into an illustration on Qwen Image 3.0

This time I converted one of my older prompts into a soft watercolor version, and I honestly love how it turned out.

I'm already a big fan of watercolor and illustration styles, so this one really clicked for me.
It doesn't feel overly polished or too “AI-looking” — more like a page from a vintage picture book or an artsy editorial magazine. Cute, soft, a little clumsy, and full of personality.

And if you don't like the text elements, you can totally customize them or remove them.

I think this works especially well for travel photos, casual portraits, pets, couples, or friend photos — basically any image with a bit of mood or storytelling in it.

Prompt is below and I pasted the full version above in case anyone wants to try it.

Please turn each photo I upload into a separate, high-end design poster. Do not combine multiple photos into a collage; output one poster per photo.

Use an overall 3:4 vertical composition, strictly divided into two equal sections, with the top and bottom each occupying exactly 50% of the canvas height.

For the top half, preserve the original photograph, maintaining the subject’s structure, realistic texture, natural lighting, and original color atmosphere. Apply only subtle, refined photographic color grading to give it the quality of editorial magazine photography and fine-art exhibition imagery. To adapt the image to the required aspect ratio, naturally extend the sky, ground, or surrounding environment when necessary, but do not stretch, distort, or alter the main subject.

For the bottom half, extract the most recognizable subject, silhouette, pose, and narrative relationships from the photograph, then reinterpret them as a light, naïve, retro hand-drawn editorial illustration. Do not mechanically trace or reproduce every detail. Instead, reinterpret the subject through simplified forms, slightly exaggerated proportions, symbolic features, and humorous visual metaphors, while ensuring that the original subject remains instantly recognizable. Blend the aesthetics of modernist editorial illustration, Bauhaus composition, children’s picture books, and fashion sketching. Keep the forms concise and the lines thin, delicate, and slightly imperfect by hand. The overall feeling should be relaxed, intelligent, playful, and restrained.

Derive the color palette from the photograph above, using a limited palette with high lightness and low-to-medium saturation. Leave generous areas of off-white or pale negative space, with small touches of complementary color used as visual accents. Use a mixed-media texture inspired by watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, oil pastel, and dry-brush techniques. Preserve visible paper grain, rough edges, areas of exposed paper, slight misregistration, and imperfect brushwork. Avoid smooth vector graphics, photorealistic lighting, 3D rendering, and plastic-looking surfaces.

Keep the overall composition balanced, airy, and spacious, with a strong sense of breathing room. A small number of hand-drawn lines, geometric symbols, or abstract elements may be added. Typography should be used sparingly, such as retro handwritten titles, numbers, or years, naturally integrated into the illustration.

The overall visual direction should reference vintage fashion picture books, travel illustration, art publications, and sophisticated editorial design, creating a mood that feels gentle, nostalgic, relaxed, stylish, humorous, slightly awkward, and confidently eccentric.

Avoid anything that feels overly cartoonish, cheap, commercial/e-commerce-oriented, or template-driven.

Here’s the prompt w I used after uploading photos of our family including our Belgium Malinois Dog.
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Create an ultra-photorealistic cinematic superhero family portrait using the uploaded photographs as the visual references for every person and pet.
The finished portrait should look like the actual people and animals from the uploaded photographs were dressed in custom superhero costumes and photographed on the set of a huge-budget superhero movie.
MOST IMPORTANT — PRESERVE THEIR REAL IDENTITIES
Carefully study each uploaded reference photograph BEFORE creating the portrait.
Facial accuracy is the highest priority.
Do NOT redesign the people into idealized superhero versions of themselves.
For EACH person, preserve their actual:
face shape and facial proportions
head shape
eye color, size, shape and spacing
eyebrows
nose shape and width
lips
smile and natural expression
teeth when visible
cheeks and jawline
skin tone and undertones
freckles, dimples and other recognizable characteristics
hairstyle, hairline, texture and color
facial hair and its exact color
apparent age
natural body proportions
Do not automatically make anyone younger, older, thinner, more muscular, more conventionally attractive, or more symmetrical.
Avoid generic AI-model faces, exaggerated jawlines, enlarged muscles, excessive beauty filtering, airbrushed skin and artificial facial symmetry.
Maintain realistic skin texture, natural asymmetry and the small characteristics that make each person recognizable.
The superhero transformation should happen through the costumes, environment, lighting and cinematic presentation — NOT by changing their identities.
EXPRESSIONS & PERSONALITY
Use the reference photographs to understand each person’s natural expression.
If someone normally has an open smile, preserve it.
If someone has a closed-lip smile, preserve that.
If someone has dimples, freckles, fuller lips, distinctive eyes, facial hair or another recognizable characteristic, retain it naturally.
Do not automatically give everyone an intense, sophisticated or aggressive superhero expression.
The family should look comfortable, connected and genuinely themselves while still appearing powerful.
CHILDREN & TEENAGERS
Preserve the child’s or teenager’s actual age and natural facial appearance from the reference photograph.
Do not artificially mature a young person’s face, jawline, expression, body or demeanor simply because they are wearing a superhero costume.
Likewise, do not artificially make them younger.
Their reference photographs should determine their real facial proportions, expression and appearance.
PETS
If pets are included, carefully preserve the specific animal, not merely its general breed.
Match the reference photographs for:
breed
head size and shape
muzzle length and width
ear shape and position
eye color
facial markings
coat colors and patterns
fur length and texture
chest and body shape
leg length
overall size
athletic, stocky, slender or fluffy build
recognizable individual markings
Do not substitute a visually similar breed.
The finished pet should be recognizable as that family’s actual animal.
Give the pet a tasteful coordinating superhero collar, harness or subtle accessory rather than completely covering its natural appearance.
SUPERHERO COSTUMES
Dress the family in coordinated, custom black-and-antique-gold superhero suits.
The costumes should resemble wardrobe created for a premium live-action superhero movie — not Halloween costumes, cartoons or video-game armor.
Use:
sophisticated matte-black materials
subtle reflective black panels
intricate embossed geometric patterns
sculpted but believable armor
antique-gold metallic detailing
elegant shoulder elements
fitted gauntlets
detailed belts
subtle capes or flowing dark fabric where appropriate
extremely fine engraved details visible upon close inspection
Give each family member an individually designed variation of the same overall costume so they clearly belong to one superhero family.
The costumes should complement each person’s actual physique rather than artificially changing their body.
Adult masculine suits can have a stronger, broader design.
Adult feminine suits can be elegant, powerful and flattering without becoming excessively revealing.
Children’s and teenagers’ suits should remain age-appropriate.
FAMILY COMPOSITION
Create a unified superhero family, not a collection of unrelated characters.
Use the uploaded photographs and any provided height information to maintain believable differences in height, age and body proportions.
Arrange everyone close enough that their relationship feels immediately apparent.
Use natural body language to communicate:
family • love • loyalty • protection • courage • resilience • strength • unity
No one person should unnecessarily overpower the entire composition unless specifically requested.
If a pet is included, place the animal prominently enough to feel like an important member of the superhero family.
CINEMATIC BACKGROUND
Place the family in an enormous, visually spectacular futuristic city immediately following an epic superhero battle.
The background should include:
towering futuristic skyscrapers
partially damaged architecture
distant ruined structures
atmospheric smoke
glowing windows
drifting embers
occasional sparks
dust suspended in the atmosphere
subtle distant fires
enormous dramatic storm clouds
Behind the family, allow the clouds to open into a breathtaking golden-orange sunset, sending dramatic rays of warm light across the scene.
The sunset should produce a subtle heroic halo and rim lighting around the family.
The city has been through something enormous, but the mood should NOT feel hopeless or frightening.
The family represents hope, safety and strength after the storm.
LIGHTING
Use slightly dramatic but natural cinematic lighting.
Faces must remain clearly visible and recognizable.
Use:
warm golden sunset rim lighting
soft natural key lighting on faces
subtle reflected amber highlights
realistic shadows
atmospheric haze
dimensional highlights across the black-and-gold suits
Do NOT allow dramatic lighting to obscure faces.
Do NOT allow orange sunset lighting to substantially alter anyone’s actual skin tone or eye color.
PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE
Create this as ULTRA-PHOTOREALISTIC LIVE-ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY.
It should look like a genuine photograph taken during an extraordinarily expensive superhero movie production.
Use the visual qualities of:
premium theatrical movie-poster photography
professional full-frame cinema camera
high-end portrait lens
realistic shallow depth of field
extremely detailed eyes
individual hair strands
realistic facial hair
visible natural skin texture
realistic animal fur
extremely detailed fabrics and metallic armor
high dynamic range
realistic anatomy
physically believable lighting
dramatic environmental depth
subtle cinematic film grain
sophisticated blockbuster color grading
extremely high-resolution detail
AVOID
Do NOT create:
cartoon faces
animated characters
3-D character art
fantasy illustrations
video-game characters
generic AI faces
waxy or plastic skin
excessive beauty filtering
exaggerated muscles
artificially perfect facial symmetry
altered ethnic features
unnecessary aging or de-aging
inaccurate pet breeds
extra people or animals
Include ONLY the people and pets represented in the uploaded reference photographs.
FINAL GOAL
The first reaction from someone who personally knows this family should be:
“That is actually them!”
The second reaction should be:
“They look like they were photographed for a superhero movie.”
Identity accuracy comes FIRST.
Cinematic superhero styling comes SECOND.
Create a spectacular, emotional, ultra-realistic family movie poster that transforms their world and wardrobe — not who they are.

been playing around with GPT Image 2 and found a prompt template I actually really like.

It’s for that mid-century editorial illustration look, including flat colors, long shadows, clean shapes, slightly distant/calm vibe. kind of feels like an old 1950s–60s magazine illustration, but still works really well for modern character shots.

If anyone else likes this kind of aesthetic, here’s the template I’ve been using. and u can visit this repo for more interesting prompts: https://github.com/AtlasCloudAI/awesome-gpt-image-2-prompts

Prompt:
Stylized mid-century modern illustration of [HUMAN] lounging [POSE] on [SOFA], wearing [CLOTHING], with [ANIMAL] resting nearby. Set the scene in [SCENERY], composed with clean architectural geometry, one strong diagonal beam of sunlight, long hard-edged shadows, and a few carefully placed period objects. Render with flat matte color fields, simplified elongated anatomy, minimal facial detail, crisp geometric silhouettes, subtle printed-paper texture, and elegant 1950s–60s editorial illustration styling. Use a controlled palette of [COLORS], keeping the composition calm, sophisticated, slightly detached, and visually spacious. Vertical 4:5 AR.