Character Reference Sheet

A character description → a consistent multi-pose / multi-expression reference sheet.

Category: visual · Difficulty: Intermediate · ~Time: 10 min

What you'll make

A turnaround-style character sheet: the same character rendered in multiple poses, angles, and expressions with consistent identity, outfit, and proportions. Use it as a reference for illustration, game/animation, or as the input to a reference-to-video drama (see motion/).

Models used

🎨 Image — Seedream 4.5 sequential (consistent multi-image sets; resolve live; e.g. bytedance/seedream-v4.5/sequential)
🎨 Image (alt) — Nano Banana Pro (strong character consistency; resolve live; e.g. google/nano-banana-pro/text-to-image)
💬 LLM — Claude or GPT (description → detailed, locked character bible), optional

Steps

Lock the character bible — ask the agent to expand your description into fixed details (face, hair, outfit, palette, proportions) you'll repeat verbatim → maps to atlas_chat.
Generate the pose set — ask for a sequential set: front / 3-4 / side / back turnaround, same character → maps to atlas_generate_image with Seedream 4.5 sequential.
Generate an expression row — ask for the same face across neutral / happy / angry / surprised → maps to atlas_generate_image with Seedream 4.5 sequential or Nano Banana Pro.
Compose the sheet — ask for the poses and expressions arranged on a clean neutral backdrop.

Tip: ask the agent to atlas_search_docs for "seedream 4.5 sequential" first so it pulls the live schema (how many frames, the sequence field names).

Prompt starters

Character reference sheet, sequential set, consistent character across all frames.
A young cartographer girl, 20s, copper bob with a green headscarf, freckles, round
glasses, olive field jacket over a cream shirt, brown satchel. Render a full-body
turnaround: front view, three-quarter view, side profile, back view — same outfit,
same proportions, neutral T-pose-ish stance, soft even studio lighting, plain
light-grey background, semi-realistic illustration style.

Expression sheet for the same character (copper bob, green headscarf, round
glasses). Five head-and-shoulders portraits in a row: neutral, warm smile,
focused/squinting, surprised, frustrated. Keep face, hair, and glasses identical
across all five. Clean line-art-meets-paint style, plain background.

Tips & variations

Drift in identity between frames? Re-paste the exact character-bible string every time, and prefer sequential generation over separate one-off calls — it holds consistency far better.
Nano Banana Pro multi-reference is a strong alternative when you already have one good portrait to anchor on.
Feed the finished sheet into Seedance 2.5 reference-to-video to animate the character into a multi-shot scene.