Concept Art

---
name: concept-art
description: "Explore art direction with 3-4 rough concept variants of a character, environment or prop."
license: MIT
compatibility: [Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Codex]
category: 2d-assets
user-invocable: true
allowed-tools: Read Grep Glob Write Edit summer_assets_generate_image summer_assets_search summer_import_from_url summer_call
paths: ["assets/**", "art/**", "concepts/**"]
---

# concept-art — Batch-of-Variants for Art Direction

This skill produces **3-4 rough concept images** of the same subject under different stylistic interpretations. The goal is not the final asset — the goal is to give the user something visual to react to so they can lock a direction. Variants are deliberately divergent (different palette, mood, framing, era) so the user has real choices, not four near-identical takes.

If the user wants ONE polished image (a dialogue portrait, a hero card), this is the wrong skill — route to `character-portrait`. The `asset-strategy` meta-router uses the disambiguation phrase **"Quick check — exploring the look (3-4 variants for art direction) or generating a final character portrait for dialogue UI?"** to send users to one of the two. If you arrived here without that question being asked, ask it before generating.

## When to use

- "I'm not sure what this character should look like — give me some options."
- "Show me 3-4 directions for the witch."
- "I want a mood board for the swamp level."
- Early-project art direction, before the GameSoul.md visual style is locked.
- The user describes a vibe ("dark fantasy", "Ghibli-esque", "Mobius") and wants to see it rendered.

## When NOT to use

- The user wants a single locked portrait for a dialogue UI → `character-portrait`.
- The user wants pixel art specifically → `pixel-art`.
- The user wants a UI icon or HUD element → `ui-graphics`.
- The user wants a tileable wall/floor texture → `tileable-texture`.
- The user wants an image-to-3D reference → `asset-strategy` (the 3D pipeline has its own prompt suffix).

## Steps

### 1. Confirm exploration vs final

Before generating, ask once:

> Quick check — exploring the look (3-4 variants for art direction) or generating a final character portrait for dialogue UI?

If "final" → hand off to `character-portrait`. If "explore" → continue.

### 2. Search for prior concepts

```
assets.search({ query: "<subject> concept", assetType: "2d_image", scope: "all" })
```

If something already exists, ask if the user wants to riff on it (img2img via `referenceImageUrl`) or start fresh.

### 3. Pick a variant axis

Variants must differ on **one explicit axis**, not noise. Pick one:

| Axis | Use when |
|---|---|
| Palette / mood | "Should this feel grim or hopeful?" |
| Era / setting | "Medieval, sci-fi, modern, post-apoc?" |
| Stylization | "Painterly, anime, photoreal, Mobius line-art?" |
| Silhouette / proportions | Character design — slim/bulky/childlike/monstrous |
| Time of day / lighting | Environment — dawn/noon/dusk/night |

State the axis to the user before generating: "I'll vary on **stylization** — painterly, anime, line-art, photoreal. OK?"

### 4. Generate the batch

Issue 3-4 calls in parallel, one per variant. Use the same subject phrasing across all four; only the style-modifier changes.

```
assets.generate_image({
  prompt: "<subject>. <axis variant 1>. concept art, evocative, rough painterly, atmospheric lighting, wide cinematic framing",
  model: "nano-banana-2",
  style: "none"
})
```

`style: "none"` is intentional: only `cartoon` and `anime` append anything to the prompt, `realistic` and `none` append nothing, and any other value is coerced to `none`. So the preset cannot override the prompt's stylistic direction — it just contributes nothing, which is what concept art wants. All four variants' divergence has to come from the prompt.

For a shape other than square, pass `aspectRatio` (`"16:9"`, `"9:16"`, ...) or `width` + `height`; the result reports the real width and height and the model that ran. Exploration images are thrown away, so square is usually fine. Background removal is the `removeBackground` argument (there is no `options` object). Four variants are four charges: `dryRun: true` on one call shows its credits.

### 5. Present the batch

After all 4 return, show the user the thumbnails (link `thumbnailUrl` for each) and ask:

> Which direction lands? I can generate variants on the chosen one, or hand off to `character-portrait` for a final.

Do NOT import any of these as `res://` assets yet. Concept art is reference, not shipped art. Only import once the user picks a winner — then either it goes to `character-portrait` for a polished version or directly to `summer_import_from_url` if they want to use it as-is as a reference.

## Prompt patterns

The structure: **subject + axis variant + "concept art" + lighting/atmosphere**. Keep prompts under 30 words.

| Goal | Prompt that works | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Character — palette axis | `young witch with raven familiar. <warm autumn palette / cold blue moonlit palette / sickly green swamp palette / monochrome ash palette>. concept art, painterly, atmospheric` | Locked subject + four explicit palettes |
| Character — silhouette axis | `goblin warrior. <slim wiry / hulking brute / childlike imp / multi-limbed mutant>. concept art, full body, rough painterly` | Forces real shape variation |
| Environment — mood axis | `swamp village at dusk. <hopeful warm lanterns / oppressive fog / abandoned ruins / overgrown nature reclaim>. concept art, wide shot, atmospheric` | Mood drives composition |
| Environment — stylization axis | `mountain temple. <Studio Ghibli soft painterly / Mobius clean line-art / dark Berserk ink / Hayao detailed wash>. concept art, wide establishing shot` | Names real reference styles the model recognizes |
| Prop — era axis | `royal sword. <bronze age / medieval / ornate baroque / sci-fi energy>. concept art, three-quarter view, neutral background` | Era as the only varying dimension |
| Creature — physiology axis | `forest spirit. <deer-like elegant / fungal grotesque / jellyfish floating / branch-and-moss elemental>. concept art, atmospheric, painterly` | Forces real morphological divergence |

### Bad prompts (and why)

| Bad | Failure mode |
|---|---|
| `cool fantasy character` | No subject, no axis. All 4 variants will look interchangeable. |
| `make 4 different witches` | Model doesn't render "4 of"; you must call 4 times. |
| `epic concept art masterpiece trending on artstation` | Adjective soup. Trending-on-artstation is a 2022 cliche; modern models render it as bland slop. |
| `same character but different` | "Different" is undefined. Pick an axis and name it. |

## Anti-patterns

- **Generating 4 near-identical variants** because you didn't pick a real axis. The user can't choose between four images that all look like the same painting.
- **Importing concept art as final assets.** These are exploration. The polished version comes from `character-portrait` after a direction is picked.
- **Treating `style` as the variant axis.** The presets are `realistic | cartoon | anime | none`, and only two of them append anything. Four "stylization" variants have to differ in their prompt text, not in the `style` argument.
- **Skipping the disambiguation question.** If you don't ask, you may generate four rough variants when the user wanted one polished bust.
- **Generating before the GameSoul.md is written.** If `.summer/GameSoul.md` exists, read it first — its visual-style section narrows the axis.

## Edge cases

- **User says "just one" after you propose 4.** That's a `character-portrait` job. Hand off.
- **User wants 8+ variants.** Generate 4 first; if the user wants more on the same axis, generate 4 more. Don't dump 8 at once — overload paralyzes choice.
- **Subject is a fully described scene, not an asset.** You're producing key art, not asset reference. Pass `aspectRatio: "16:9"` (or `width: 1920, height: 1080` for store key art) and bias toward atmospheric.
- **User wants the final to be 3D.** After they pick a direction, route to `asset-strategy` — concept-art images are not 3D-ready references (they have backgrounds, scene context, dramatic lighting baked in). The 3D pipeline needs its own clean white-background reference.

## Without Summer Engine

In a session without Summer Engine tools (the assets profile; the `summer-assets` skill has the whole loop), every step works. Pass `out` with the person's folder so the batch lands there (the `summer-assets` skill says how), and skip `summer_import_from_url`.

## Fallback (no MCP)

Print the 4 prompts and the call for each:

```
assets.generate_image({ prompt: "<variant 1>", model: "nano-banana-2", style: "none" })
assets.generate_image({ prompt: "<variant 2>", ... })
...
```

Tell the user to run via the Summer dashboard, then come back and `summer_import_from_url` the winning variant.

## Handoff

Once the user picks a direction:

- **Character / NPC final** → `character-portrait` (use the picked variant as `referenceImageUrl`).
- **3D model from this concept** → `asset-strategy` (regenerate a 3D-ready reference; concept art is not 3D-ready as-is).
- **Tileable texture from this mood** → `tileable-texture`.
- **Pixel-art version** → `pixel-art`.
- **Lock the visual direction** → write the choice into `.summer/GameSoul.md` under `## Visual style` so future asset skills inherit it.

## See also

- `asset-strategy` — meta-router that delegates here vs other 2d-assets skills.
- `character-portrait` — the polished single-image counterpart.
- `summer_docs_read` id `reference/mcp-tools-reference` — how to call `assets.generate_image`.

<!-- shell-commands: generated from the operation catalog by npm run generate:registry; do not edit by hand -->
## From a shell

No Summer MCP tools in this session? Run each one as a command; when `summer --version` is missing or below 4.0, use `npx -y summer-engine@4.3.0` in place of `summer`. Fields are flags in kebab-case (`--scene-path res://main.tscn`) or one `--input '<json>'`, and `summer ops describe <op>` prints the exact input. The `summer-cli` skill has the rest.

| In this skill | Command |
|---|---|
| `assets.generate_image`, `summer_assets_generate_image` | `summer assets generate-image` |
| `summer_assets_search` | `summer assets search` |
| `summer_docs_read` | `summer docs read` |
| `summer_import_from_url` | `summer engine import-from-url` |
<!-- /shell-commands -->