Image - 2026-10-13 09:26

Use the uploaded image as a STRICT ART STYLE REFERENCE. Create ONE cinematic vertical illustration, aspect ratio 9:16, for an animated philosophical fairy tale. SCENE 01 — THE CITY BEFORE THE MIRROR An ordinary morning in a beautiful ancient fictional city, inspired by Mediterranean and Middle Eastern antiquity. A narrow sunlit street stretches into the distance between simple pale stone buildings with elegant arches. A small open cobbler's workshop stands on one side of the street. In the foreground, three townspeople are naturally going about their day. One person walks past the camera, another carries a basket, and a merchant speaks to a customer. A few lightly sketched pedestrians appear farther down the street. The city feels peaceful, alive and believable. Its beauty comes from harmonious proportions, sunlight and human presence, NOT architectural extravagance. VERTICAL CINEMATIC COMPOSITION Portrait orientation, 9:16. Strong foreground, middle ground and background separation. Human figures are large enough to show stylized facial anatomy and expressions. The street creates a natural perspective leading the viewer's eye upward into the distance. A clean, readable composition suitable for a slow cinematic camera movement during image-to-video animation. EXACT REFERENCE STYLE Faithfully reproduce the uploaded reference's distinctive hand-drawn pencil technique. Expressive, sculpted, semi-realistic character faces with Arcane-inspired angular anatomy and elegant stylized proportions. Precise graphite pencil contours. Fine, controlled directional hatching and crosshatching that follows the planes of faces, hands and clothing. Create volume through actual visible pencil strokes, NOT smooth digital shading or gray painted gradients. Keep large areas of clean white paper. High clarity, beautiful confident linework, selective dark accents, refined facial details. Background architecture must be simplified, lightly outlined and minimally shaded. Prioritize characters and composition over environmental detail. Pure black-and-white graphite pencil artwork. Bright white background. No sepia. ABSOLUTE RESTRICTIONS No photorealism. No polished 3D cartoon appearance. No smooth digital painting. No charcoal textures. No dirty sketch effects. No excessive architectural details. No giant palaces, castles, towers, domes, waterfalls or mountains. No dense crowds. No heavy black shadows. No all-over gray shading. Do not reproduce the person from the style reference; reproduce ONLY the drawing style. No mirror, no goddess, no magical figure. ONE SINGLE FULL-FRAME VERTICAL IMAGE. No collage, no split panels, no storyboard sheet, no text, no borders.