White-line woodcut

How to use it

Print most of the clip area by area as woodcut scenes of slow growth, roots before fruit, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the line about patience.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallWorksSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn 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: White-line woodcut
Slice style ref: sref-ZYA3ZJ
A white-line woodcut: one wooden block, every shape separated by a carved groove, inked area by area and printed on cream paper. Ground: warm cream paper #F2EADA with a faint pencil key of the design showing where nothing is printed yet. Colour areas: soft, slightly watery inks, never flat: slate blue #7FA3B5, pale sage #A9C3C4, ochre #E8C47C, greens #93A97A and #5F7F55, earth browns #8A5A3A to #4F3A2E, stone grey #6F7B83, and one warm red-orange #D8613C kept for the sun and #C8452F for the fruit. Texture: wood grain shows through every colour as fine darker streaks, ink pools darker at the edges of each shape, the paper's tooth breaks the ink in small speckles. Line: there are no black outlines; every shape is outlined by a thin paper-white groove (about 0.75% of the short side), which is the signature of the look. Camera: a slow tilt across the print. Motion: colour arrives area by area, spreading out from one point with a ragged brushed edge, as if the printer is inking each shape in turn; the last small accents pop in as the peak; then the sheet dissolves back to the bare key. The one rule: colour sits inside carved shapes, and white grooves, never black lines, separate them. DON'T: black linocut ink, cartoon outlines, smooth gradients, digital textures, more than one warm accent.
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

• A white-line woodcut: one wooden block, every shape separated by a carved groove, inked area by area and printed on cream paper.
• Ground: warm cream paper #F2EADA with a faint pencil key of the design showing where nothing is printed yet.
• Colour areas: soft, slightly watery inks, never flat: slate blue #7FA3B5, pale sage #A9C3C4, ochre #E8C47C, greens #93A97A and #5F7F55, earth browns #8A5A3A to #4F3A2E, stone grey #6F7B83, and one warm red-orange #D8613C kept for the sun and #C8452F for the fruit.
• Texture: wood grain shows through every colour as fine darker streaks, ink pools darker at the edges of each shape, the paper's tooth breaks the ink in small speckles.
• Line: there are no black outlines; every shape is outlined by a thin paper-white groove (about 0.75% of the short side), which is the signature of the look.
• Camera: a slow tilt across the print.
• Motion: colour arrives area by area, spreading out from one point with a ragged brushed edge, as if the printer is inking each shape in turn; the last small accents pop in as the peak; then the sheet dissolves back to the bare key.
• The one rule: colour sits inside carved shapes, and white grooves, never black lines, separate them.
• DON'T: black linocut ink, cartoon outlines, smooth gradients, digital textures, more than one warm accent.

What it suits

Best for

slow growth and hidden work: things that take seasons, roots before fruit, quiet patience paying off

Avoid for

hype, tech launches, data and fast comedy

Content

Faith, Personal story, Wellbeing, Advice, Nostalgia

Tone

Patient, Earthy, Hopeful, Gentle

Pace

Slow

Topics

white-line woodcut, woodblock print, wood grain, printmaking, earthy colour, cross-section, roots

Colours

#F2EADA #7FA3B5 #E8C47C #5F7F55 #8A5A3A #D8613C

For AIs: this style as plain text.