The style anchor

The style anchor is one accepted hero frame: the main character in one moment of the film, drawn in the film's exact style. It owns the style and the character's design, and everything else is made from it.

Make it first, before any other stylised asset [proven]. Attach it to every later stylised still and to every video generation as the style reference. A photoreal film has no style anchor: its look lives in the treatment's look block (see Still prompts, storyboard frames and diagrams → Text, sourcing and the look block).

Write the style in what you can see, never by a label alone. "Anime style" teaches the model nothing. Use the nine construction descriptors:

1. outline colour and weight;

2. shading steps and shadow colour;

3. eye construction;

4. how the nose and mouth are simplified;

5. skin;

6. hair strands;

7. head-to-body proportion;

8. palette and light;

9. how the background is treated.

Inputs

• One to three human-made style references from animation, illustration or art in the same family, each owning one quality. Award-level human work only, never AI-made (see References → What counts).

• A designer's drawing [proven], where you commission one or the client gives you one. It becomes the approved design reference for the style anchor and every turnaround. Its role line (the one sentence that says what it owns and what to ignore) says it owns the character's design and construction only, and to ignore the paper, the pencil or line texture, the scan's colour and any notes on the page. Why: a drawing's paper and line texture leak into generations unless the role line excludes them. The anchor is still a newly designed image in the film's medium; never trace the drawing into panels.

• A real person's photo, where a real person is drawn: it owns the face shape and features only.

Template (written for this guide)

A style anchor for a {style} {genre} film: {character} in {moment}, {composition}, {aspect}. The {style reference: what it shows} owns the drawing style only: {the nine descriptors}; draw none of its characters. {The {second reference} owns {one quality} only.} {The designer's drawing of {character} owns the design and construction only; ignore the paper, the line texture and any notes.} Every person, object and surface is drawn in this medium; nothing photographic. {Character: age, build, silhouette element, wardrobe, what each hand holds}; {design lock}. {The moment, the place, the time of day}. Palette: {named colours with materials and placement}; the time of day is {time}. One face, drawn once and not mixed from the references; no text, letters or logos.

Example (written for this guide): a 2D gouache comedy for Nabeeq, an invented pomegranate juice.

A style anchor for a hand-painted 2D gouache comedy ad: Fawzi braced behind his juice cart, halfway up a stepped alley at noon, seen in three-quarter view from a little below, centred, 16:9. The scanned spread from a hand-painted picture book owns the painting style only: a broken dark-umber brush outline, heavier under the chin and around the hands; two flat shading steps, the shadows a warm violet; eyes as small black dots under one thin lid line; the nose a single rounded stroke and the mouth a short curve; flat opaque skin with no texture; hair and moustache as solid masses with three dry-brush highlights each; the head a third of the body's height; a chalky, sun-bleached palette; backgrounds painted softer, with paper grain and no outlines. Draw none of its characters. The designer's pencil drawing of Fawzi owns his design and construction only; ignore the paper, the pencil grain and the margin notes. Every person, object and surface is painted in this medium; nothing photographic, no halftone dots. Fawzi is in his sixties and pear-shaped, with a vast grey moustache, a white cotton cap and a striped shirt rolled to the elbows; both hands grip the cart's handle, his whole weight against it. Keep his pear-shaped head, dot eyes and moustache exactly as in the drawing; do not widen, slim, age or redraw his face. The alley is a stair of worn steps between old ochre houses, washing strung overhead. Palette: the cart's pomegranate-red awning leads, sun-bleached ochre walls support it, deep teal appears only on the shutters; the time of day is noon. One face, painted once; no text, letters or logos.

Sources

• Higgsfield's katana workflow (the hero style frame first; the construction descriptors).

• The designer's drawing as the source: Coca-Cola's Holidays Are Coming 2025 with Secret Level, from artists' sketches to character sheets (Denoised podcast); Native Foreign's Critterz (The Decoder); Hugo Blendl (Higgsfield profile); Morek by @lovii (project).