--- name: netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi description: >- Generate a finished image from an attached photograph, a described scene, or a context that needs illustration. Apply a dense mid-century science-fiction comic style: meticulous fine-brush inking with feathered hatching and stipple, vast pools of solid black shadow, intricate machinery with rivets, cables, gauges and panels, sleek spacesuits and bubble helmets, glowing instrument light and saturated printed color over deep blacks. Preserve recognizable people and source-image content. Offer up to three relevant optional style adjustments and generate a labeled comparison grid when requested. Use for retro space-age illustrations, sci-fi machinery scenes, technical noir, rocket-age portraits, or /netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi. Image generation is required; a prompt alone is not the deliverable. metadata: version: "1.0.0" teaser: "Open the back of an old radio and you feel it: a whole city of tubes, wires and solder hiding in the dark. This skill draws that city. Feathered ink, deep black shadows and machinery dense enough to count rivets turn your photo, scene or idea into a finished science-fiction illustration. The click: the darkness does the work, and every glowing dial makes the black around it feel bigger. You stay yourself, just lit by instruments." tags: - image-generation - illustration - style-transfer - creativity - design --- # Deep-Shadow Sci-Fi Turn a familiar subject into a meticulous, shadow-drenched science-fiction illustration. A supplied face stays recognizable and unhidden; a described scene stays yours; a context becomes a machine-filled world where the hidden mechanism finally shows. Detail and darkness work together: dense technology at the edges of the light, solid black where the light ends. Deliver the image itself. ## Required capabilities and resources - Use an image-generation/editing tool. For a photograph, use an actual image edit with the photograph attached as the edit target. Do not reconstruct it from a description alone. - Use **netsi-prompt-generator** for the internal image prompt. If it is installed, read its instructions. Otherwise read the bundled, complete copy at `references/prompt-generator.md` and apply that skill's workflow to the prompt subtask. - Read `references/style-profile.md` before composing the prompt, and `references/tweaks.md` when adjustments or a comparison are relevant. - Inspect the bundled generated examples in `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/` as anonymous visual calibration, especially `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/04-reactor-repair.png` for machinery density and shadow and `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/02-car.png` for how a supplied face stays clear in the dark. When the image tool supports multiple references, supply the input photograph as the **edit target** and a relevant bundled illustration as the **style reference only**. In a new scene, the bundled illustrations are style references only. Never copy their subject, composition, identity or labels into the user's result. Do not redistribute historical research scans. - The prompt generator's output contract applies internally: its English prompt goes to the image tool. The parent skill's user-facing deliverable remains the finished image. - If image generation is unavailable, say that clearly in the user's language. Do not label an English prompt or a mockup as a generated image. Never silently substitute a different provider or paid API. ## Recognize one of three inputs **A — Image.** Inspect the photograph. Record the person or subject, face proportions, age, expression, pose, hands, clothing, glasses, recognizable accessories, objects, framing and meaningful setting. Preserve these unless the user explicitly asks to change them. Technology may be added around the person and as small accessories, but never over the face, eyes, glasses, tattoos, jewelry or existing lettering. Retain the input aspect ratio by default. A style reference is a different role from the edit target; do not swap them. **B — Scene.** Extract who or what is present, actions, setting, composition and any explicit constraints. Keep the scene's content. A scene that is not set in space keeps its setting: the sci-fi vocabulary then appears through machinery, instrument light, cables and deep shadow, not by launching the location into orbit. If no aspect ratio is supplied, use 16:9 for a scene; follow a stated medium such as a square social post instead when provided. **C — Context.** Extract the message, audience, mood and destination from the supplied text or conversation. Choose a concrete, original visual metaphor built from machinery: the hidden engine room behind a simple surface, the console behind a button, the vast structure behind a small act. Do not invent facts, numbers, quotations or branding. Make the message understandable without text by default. Ask only if materially different interpretations prevent a useful result. Use the requested destination's aspect ratio, otherwise 16:9. If inputs are combined, infer their roles: for example, an image is the subject and a paragraph supplies the illustration's message. Ask one focused question only when the roles conflict. ## Optional adjustments: zero to three The canonical controls are **Machinery**, **Shadow**, and **Color**. Values and defaults live in the tweaks reference. Never weaken the identity of this style by changing its fine feathered inking and solid blacks to a generic filter, a 3D render or another medium. If the request is clear, apply the explicit values or defaults and generate immediately. Do not require a questionnaire. If the user asks to explore, requests a materially ambiguous adjustment, or a meaningful unresolved choice would change the result, use an **AskUserQuestion** interaction: the environment's interactive question tool, or the same concise question in chat when no such tool is available. Offer at most three relevant tweak controls. Ask one focused question at a time, explain its visual effect in plain language, place the recommended/default answer first, and allow a custom answer and discussion. Where tool schemas add free text automatically, do not duplicate it with a fake option. Infer answers already supplied. Do not mistake silence for consent to a material change. If the user simply wants the default image, no question is needed. Translate questions, explanations and choices into the user's language. Canonical parameter values stay English in prompts and grid labels. Natural-language requests such as "behold stedet, bare tegn det om" may be mapped directly to a suitable value (Machinery = Sparse) without asking again. Respect stated content: a scene described in bright daylight implies Shadow = Lit, and a black-and-white print destination implies Color = Ink. Stated content takes precedence over a style default. ## Generate, inspect, deliver 1. Inspect the input and identify its type and invariants. 2. Load the detailed style profile. Resolve any relevant optional adjustments. 3. Apply **netsi-prompt-generator** to form one self-contained internal prompt with role, task, context/constraints and output format. Explicitly set **the entire image-tool prompt to English**, regardless of the dialogue language. Preserve requested in-image text verbatim in its requested language; this is the only language exception inside the English instructions. 4. Include the profile's core traits, their priorities, selected tweak values and the input's exact preservation constraints. Describe the specific machinery and light sources concretely. Use descriptive traits only. Do not mention artist names, named fictional characters, existing works, publishers, signatures or imitation slogans. 5. Generate or edit the actual image. For a local edit target, inspect it before editing and pass the file through the image tool's supported reference mechanism. 6. Inspect the result: recognize the subject; check that the face is visible and lit, and check expression, accessories and hand gesture; check scene content; check feathered fine-brush inking, large solid blacks, believable dense machinery, instrument or rim light and flat printed color; check any requested lettering. The style must influence the drawing, not merely darken a photograph or paste gadgets on top. 7. If a material defect exists, make a focused revision and inspect again. Keep a consistent target identity and do not silently alter the scene to make the drawing easier. 8. Deliver the finished image, with at most a short useful caption in the user's language. Keep the internal prompt hidden unless the user explicitly asks for it. Save final project-bound assets in that project's folder; do not overwrite the source photograph. Never turn a person into an animal, a robot or a known science-fiction character, never close a helmet visor over a supplied face, and never let shadow swallow the eyes or the identifying features. The darkness frames the person; it does not erase them. ## Comparison grids When requested, create one **16:9 image with 4 columns × 3 rows** (12 image cells). Use the same subject, identity, pose, objects and crop in every cell. Reserve a legible label strip under each image, inside the overall canvas. Labels contain the exact English parameter names and values, never artist names. Use the schedule in `references/tweaks.md`: it includes the default and varies Machinery and Shadow while keeping Color at Pulp. A matrix may explore Color instead if requested, but must state the exact changed values. Generate the artwork with the image tool. Use supported layout/text composition tools to assemble a precise grid if available; do not use code to imitate the illustration or recolor a photograph as a substitute. A single image-tool call may render the complete labeled grid. Verify 12 cells, order, visible differences, literal labels and a 16:9 canvas (allow one pixel of integer raster rounding) before delivering. Regenerate if lettering or structure is wrong. Do not claim pixel-identical identity or perfectly isolated experimental control: image generation can vary details. Aim for faithful, visually comparable variations and disclose a material limitation if it remains. ## Start with an example - Attach a photograph: "Apply this style. Keep the face, pose and surroundings recognizable." See `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/01-pool.png` and `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/02-car.png`. - Describe a scene: "An engineer in a spacesuit repairs a huge reactor ring inside a dark cargo hold, lit only by her helmet lamp and the glowing gauges." See `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/04-reactor-repair.png`. - Supply context: "Illustrate the hidden machinery behind a simple cloud backup, for a tech blog header. No text in the image." See `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/05-hidden-infrastructure.png`. - Explore adjustments: "Show my attached lakeside portrait in a 4 × 3 comparison grid with English tweak labels." See `https://assets.netsi.dk/skills/netsi-style-like-deep-shadow-scifi/images/03-tweak-grid.png`.