Cobalt Vermilion Grain

Illustration · Grain · Flat Colour

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Cobalt Vermilion Grain, Five colours, no outlines, and a heavy grain sitting over every shape — Corner coffee shop

Recipe

The style is the recipe. The subject is yours.

A description in plain sentences. This is the version to start with, and it works on any current image model. Settings below are the ones we used on Midjourney; treat them as a starting point.

Make it yours

The recipe is the style, not the picture. Put your own subject in and the highlighted part of the prompt changes.

Prompt

a small coffee shop on a street corner, flat illustration with no outlines anywhere so every form separates from its neighbour by colour alone, a tight palette of cobalt blue, vermilion, warm yellow, cream and black and no sixth colour, a heavy even grain sitting over every shape like a risograph pulled slightly too hard, confident precise drawing rather than naive or wonky, simplified rounded forms, strong graphic composition cropped close and sitting off centre --ar 4:5 --stylize 200 --v 7

The prompt gets you close. Feed one of the examples in as a style reference for the rest. Download the images

Use the examples as a reference

Download the examples

Drag an example into Discord to get a URL, then put that URL at the start of the prompt as an image prompt, or use it as a style reference with --sref <url>. Tune with --sw, where 100 is default and 50 keeps more of your own subject.

Settings on Midjourney

Aspect: --ar 4:5
Stylize: --stylize 200
Chaos: --chaos 6
Version: --v 7

Tips

1An --sref locks this look in one shot, but a code pointing at your own jobs is no use to anyone reading the page. The prompt above stands on its own.
2Say no outlines. Add a line around the shapes and it turns into ordinary vector cartooning.
3Name all five colours and say no sixth. Left open, Midjourney adds greens and the palette stops being the point.
4Precise, not wonky. Ask for naive drawing and it collapses into the same look as every other kids illustration prompt.

Overview

Flat illustration built from a deliberately short palette: cobalt blue, vermilion, warm yellow, cream and black, with no sixth colour and no outlines anywhere, so every form separates from its neighbour by colour alone. Over all of it sits a heavy even grain, the speckle of a risograph pulled slightly too hard, which gives flat shapes a soft furred edge and stops the colour reading as vector. The drawing underneath is confident and precise rather than naive, forms are simplified and rounded, and compositions crop in close and sit off centre. The register never changes with the subject, which is the interesting part: a corner coffee shop, a crowded crossing and a city under bombardment all arrive in the same bright, cheerful ink.

Category: Illustration
Period: Contemporary
Recipes: Midjourney, GPT Image, Flux
Views: 166
Added: 18 Aug 2026