The Edit-Don't-Redo Art Kit

Five chatbot prompts for game art you can fix yourself.

You ask a chatbot for a picture. It's almost right. You ask for one small change, and you get a different picture back. The part you liked is gone.

This kit fixes that. It gives you five prompts you can copy into any chatbot, plus a short set of habits that keep the result in small, named pieces. When a piece is wrong, you change that piece and leave the rest alone.

You don't need any app for steps 1 to 5. Step 6 shows a faster way if you want it.

Before you start: decide three things

Chatbots guess when you don't say. Tell them these up front and you'll redo less.

Size. A sprite is small (16, 32 or 64 pixels square). A background is wide (for example 480 by 320).
Palette. Pick 4 to 6 colors as hex codes, like #12494b. Fewer colors look more like a game and are easier to recolor.
Pieces. List the parts you may want to change later: "background, character, shadow". Each part will get its own name.

Prompt 1: A scene in named layers

Copy this, then fill in the brackets:

Draw [a quiet harbor at dusk] as an SVG, [480] wide and [320] tall. Use only these colors: [#12494b, #ff7a59, #faf5ea, #12302f]. Put each part in its own group with a clear id: `background`, `water`, `boat`, `details`. Draw each group fully on its own, with no overlapping paths inside a group. Return only the SVG code in one code block.

Why it works: Named groups are handles. Later you can say "change boat" and the chatbot knows what you mean. You can also open the file in any vector editor and move whole groups.

Prompt 2: Change one thing, keep everything else

This is the one that saves your evenings. After Prompt 1, paste your SVG back with this:

Here is my SVG. Change only the group with id `boat`: make it a red sailboat facing left. Do not change any other group. Keep all ids and all colors outside `boat` exactly as they are. Return the whole SVG again in one code block.

Why it works: You say what to touch and what to leave alone. Chatbots do better when "leave alone" is written down.

If it still changes other things: Ask for only the new group, then paste it into your file yourself. Small pieces are safer than whole pictures.

Prompt 3: A sprite you can read and edit as text

For a 16 by 16 sprite, ask for a grid of letters instead of a picture:

Make a 16 by 16 pixel sprite of [a small red mushroom with white spots]. Use a letter for each color and give me a legend. Return 16 rows of 16 characters in one code block, then the legend: `.` is transparent, `R` is #b23a1b, `W` is #faf5ea, `T` is #12302f. Use only those characters.

Why it works: You can see every pixel in the text. To change one, edit one character. Count the rows and columns before you use it: chatbots sometimes give 15 or 17.

Prompt 4: Three versions to pick from

Give me three different [mushroom] sprites with the same size and palette. Label them A, B and C. Keep each one simple: no more than 8 colors.

Pick one, then use Prompt 2 on it. Choosing from three is cheaper than asking for a fix to the wrong one.

Prompt 5: A matching set

Your game needs art that looks like one family. After you have one good sprite, say:

Here is my sprite and its legend. Make [a blue mushroom, a tall tree and a rock] in the same size, the same palette and the same outline style. Use the same legend letters.

Reusing the same palette and letters is what makes a set look like it belongs together.

The one-page cheat sheet

Say the size in numbers.
Give the palette as hex codes.
Ask for named parts, one per layer or group.
Ask for fewer colors than you think you need.
Say what to change and what to leave alone.
Ask for the whole file back, in one code block.
Check the size: count the rows or read the width and height.
Ask for three versions, then pick.
Keep your last good version. Paste it back when a change goes wrong.
Smaller requests give better results than long ones.

Step 6: Watch it draw, then fix one step

If you'd rather not paste code back and forth, Strokeloom does the keeping-track for you. It's a sketchpad that runs in your browser, free, with no account.

Open Strokeloom and tap Prompt Kit. Copy the short instruction sheet into your chatbot. It teaches the chatbot a plain-text stroke format in one message.
Ask for your picture. Paste the reply into Strokeloom.
It draws step by step. Every step is a line of text you can read.
Scrub the replay, delete the step you don't like, and keep painting by hand on top.
Export SVG or PNG when you're happy.

A script looks like this, and you can read all of it:

strokeloom 1
canvas 480 320
layer sky
gradient 0,0 0,320 #ffb88c #fbe8c8
layer sun
color #ff7a59
ellipse 330 130 44 44 fill

If a line is wrong, the validator says which line and why.

Strokeloom's core tools are free: painting, script import, the replay timeline, pixel mode and exports. SwipeFinch Pro is optional and starts at $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year. It adds more storyboard frames, backups, version snapshots, sprite sheets and monthly content packs. You can cancel any time.

Everything you make stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded.

Open Strokeloom