Spot black comic

How to use it

Tell most of the clip as full-frame line cartoons of the honest moments described, with a cut back to the speaker once or twice for the dry pay-off.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallWorksSplitWorksSideSuits itDrawn overAvoid

Full scene: the scene fills the frame. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

VISUAL STYLE: Spot black comic
Slice style ref: sref-PP1R1Z
Spot black comic. Clean black line cartoons with solid black shadow spots on white.
Palette: #FFFFFF white, #111111 black, #E9E6DF pale grey floor, #E8453C red used once at most, for the one thing that matters.
Line and fill: one confident, even black line with round caps. Solid black areas do the shading and dark clothing: hair, a sweater, the shadow side of a mug, the strip under a table top. Everything else is white.
Characters: simple and original, oval heads, dot eyes, a small nose hook, short line mouths. Expressions change with an eyebrow or a mouth, not big acting.
Texture: none.
Light: implied only by spot blacks, always on the same side.
Camera: locked, one simple floor line.
Motion: animated on twos (12 drawings a second). Mostly held poses; small eye shifts, blinks, a head tilt, a slow line of steam. Speech boxes appear with the sentence, one at a time, and hold.
Type: hand-lettered black capitals inside rounded-rectangle speech boxes with a small pointed tail.
The rule: only black and white, with blacks used as shadow.
Don'ts: no grey shading, no colour beyond the one rare accent, no gradients, no hatching, no known cartoon characters or lookalikes.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• Spot black comic. Clean black line cartoons with solid black shadow spots on white.
• Palette: #FFFFFF white, #111111 black, #E9E6DF pale grey floor, #E8453C red used once at most, for the one thing that matters.
• Line and fill: one confident, even black line with round caps. Solid black areas do the shading and dark clothing: hair, a sweater, the shadow side of a mug, the strip under a table top. Everything else is white.
• Characters: simple and original, oval heads, dot eyes, a small nose hook, short line mouths. Expressions change with an eyebrow or a mouth, not big acting.
• Texture: none.
• Light: implied only by spot blacks, always on the same side.
• Camera: locked, one simple floor line.
• Motion: animated on twos (12 drawings a second). Mostly held poses; small eye shifts, blinks, a head tilt, a slow line of steam. Speech boxes appear with the sentence, one at a time, and hold.
• Type: hand-lettered black capitals inside rounded-rectangle speech boxes with a small pointed tail.
• The rule: only black and white, with blacks used as shadow.
• Don'ts: no grey shading, no colour beyond the one rare accent, no gradients, no hatching, no known cartoon characters or lookalikes.

What it suits

Best for

Honest self-talk, dry humour and small quiet stories told as simple cartoons.

Avoid for

Big hype announcements or data-heavy business talk.

Content

Comedy, Wellbeing, Personal story, Something emotional

Tone

Warm, Thoughtful

Pace

Slow

Topics

honest, self-talk, humour, anxiety, habits, procrastination, relationship, everyday, confidence, feelings

Colours

#FFFFFF #111111 #E9E6DF #E8453C

For AIs: this style as plain text.