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Saturday Morning Cartoon

Illustration · Animation · Cel

Download examples
Action frame with speed lines
Character on a painted background
Title card
Model sheet
Frame captured off a VHS recording

Recipe

GPT Image

gpt-image-1

Updated 13 Jul 2026

Full sentences. Describe the scene, then the medium, then the flaws you want kept in.

The recipe is the style, not the picture. Put your own subject in and the prompt updates.

Prompt

A frame from a 1987 television cartoon. A hand painted character cel with bold black outlines and flat saturated colour, single hard shadow shapes, placed over a far more detailed painted background of a canyon at sunset. Limited animation posing, 4:3 frame, slight broadcast softness and a faint tape colour bleed on the reds.

Use the examples as a reference

Download the examples

Send the example as an input image to the images.edits endpoint alongside the prompt, or attach it in ChatGPT. It follows composition closely, so describe your subject firmly or it will copy the example.

Recommended settings

Size
1024 x 768
Quality
Medium
Background
Opaque
Output
PNG

Tips

  • 1The gap between simple cel and detailed background is the era. Ask for both.
  • 2Tape colour bleed on reds is a small detail that does a lot.
  • 3Limited animation posing keeps figures from looking like modern vector art.

Things to try

Title card

a painted logo card with an airbrushed starburst behind it

Model sheet

four turnaround poses with handwritten notes

Toy tie in

a vehicle transforming, heavy chrome highlights

Background painting only

the painted background with no characters on it

Recorded off air

tracking lines and a channel logo in the corner

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