AI Art Styles: The Reference

The fastest way to change an AI image is to name an art style, but most people only know a handful. This is the reference: one constant subject (a red fox) rendered across 20 art movements and mediums, so the only thing that changes card to card is the style itself. Copy any prompt, swap the fox for your subject, and you have the look. The movements are model-agnostic and evergreen: the same words work on Midjourney, GPT Image, Flux and more.

Works in: Midjourney, GPT Image, Flux, Nano Banana, Stable Diffusion.

How to use this skill

When the user asks for an image prompt in this style, compose one using the formulas and vocabulary below. Fill each slot with a concrete choice, then return the finished prompt. Prefer naming a real camera/lens, a light, and a colour or film treatment, which is what makes the output read as a real photograph rather than an AI render.

Formulas

The art-style formula

[subject], in the [art movement] style, [two or three signature traits], [artist, optional]

The signature traits are what stop the model from giving you a generic version. For Art Deco, that is 'geometric, gold and black, symmetrical'. For watercolour, 'soft washes, bleeding edges, paper texture'.

Worked prompt examples

_Naming the artist_

A red fox sitting, full body, centered, plain neutral background, in the ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock print style, flat colours, bold black outlines, in the style of Hokusai

_Ukiyo-e woodblock_

A red fox sitting, full body, centered, plain neutral background, in the ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock print style, flat colours, bold black outlines, Hokusai

_Art Deco_

A red fox sitting, full body, centered, plain neutral background, in the Art Deco style, geometric gold and black, symmetrical, elegant 1920s poster

_Cyberpunk neon_

A red fox sitting, full body, centered, plain neutral background, in a cyberpunk style, neon lights, dark rain-soaked city, holographic glow

Vocabulary

20 art styles, one fox

Classic painting

• Impressionism: Loose, visible brushstrokes and dappled light. Monet, Renoir.
• Oil painting: Rich impasto and old-master chiaroscuro. Weighty and timeless.
• Watercolour: Soft transparent washes, bleeding edges, visible paper.
• Cubism: Fragmented geometric planes and multiple viewpoints at once. Picasso.
• Surrealism: Dreamlike, uncanny, impossible juxtapositions. Dali.
• Charcoal sketch: Expressive graphite and smudge on rough paper, monochrome.

Graphic & print

• Art Deco: Geometric, symmetrical, gold-and-black 1920s luxury.
• Art Nouveau: Flowing organic lines and floral borders. Mucha.
• Ukiyo-e: Japanese woodblock: flat colour, bold outlines. Hokusai.
• Bauhaus: Primary colours, geometric shapes, clean modernist rigour.
• Pop Art: Bold flat colour and Ben-Day dots. Warhol, Lichtenstein.
• Stained glass: Bold lead lines around luminous panes of coloured glass.
• Comic book: Bold ink outlines, halftone shading, dynamic energy.
• Line art: A single continuous minimal black line on white.

Modern & digital

• Minimalism: Simple flat shapes and a tight, limited palette.
• Pixel art: 16-bit sprite with a limited retro-game palette.
• Low poly: Faceted geometric mesh with flat shading. 3D render.
• Vaporwave: Pink-and-teal 80s nostalgia, neon grids, glitch.
• Cyberpunk: Neon on a dark, wet, high-tech city.
• Psychedelic: Swirling vivid colour and ornate 1960s-poster detail.

Mediums, eras and finishes

Medium

• Gouache: Opaque, matte, poster-like paint.
• Ink wash: Monochrome brush-and-ink gradients.
• Linocut / woodcut: Carved, high-contrast relief print.
• Risograph: Grainy spot-colour print with offset misregistration.
• Marker illustration: Bold, streaky Copic-marker fashion sketch.
• 3D clay render: Soft matte claymation look.

Era / decade

• Victorian etching: Fine cross-hatched engraving.
• 1950s advertising: Mid-century mascot illustration.
• 1980s airbrush: Glossy, gradient, sci-fi paperback.
• 1990s CD-ROM 3D: Early-render nostalgia.

Finish

• Halftone: Dot-pattern print shading.
• Grain / film noise: Analogue texture over the whole frame.
• Gold foil: Metallic accents catching light.
• Screen print: Flat spot colours, slight registration offset.

From God of Skills: a curated, hand-tested directory of AI skills, prompts, templates and image style guides. Source: https://godofskills.com/playbooks/ai-art-styles?ref=claude-skill