Your first images

A painted yellow bird in a black tie in three scenes: peeking around a pyramid of mangoes in a market, stepping along a classroom window sill while two birds dance inside, and offering half a passion fruit to a pink bird on a mossy branch. — Each of these scenes used the same bird image as its reference.

Overview

This page walks you through making a yellow bird in a black tie and putting the same bird into new scenes. You make four birds, pick one, and use it as the reference for each scene.

It takes a few minutes and 96 credits. New accounts start with 100, so your welcome credits cover it.

Create your account

Sign up with Continue with Google, or with your name, email and a password of at least 8 characters. Google accounts get their 100 welcome credits straight away. Email accounts get them when you click the link in the verification email. When the app offers you a plan, choose Skip, choose later; you don't need one for this page.

Start a project

A project keeps the bird and its scenes together, away from everything else you make. Open the project menu at the top of the page, choose New project, name it, and select Create project. The page empties and tells you that anything you create now lands in the project.

Make four birds

Type your prompt in the box at the bottom of the page. Ours:

A quirky yellow tropical bird mascot perched on a curling branch in a lush imaginary jungle, inspecting a tiny glowing seed with a skeptical half-lidded stare. The bird has blue wing tips, a neat black tie, and long striped legs; keep these identifying features clear. Soft hand-painted children's-book illustration with luminous peach and pink light, oversized coral-orange and lavender leaves, delicate botanical details, fine paper grain and subtle gouache texture. A self-contained editorial illustration for a clean white documentation page, with a readable central silhouette and generous calm margins. Warm playful visual storytelling, refined color harmonies, no lettering or interface.

Leave the model on Nano Banana 2. Open the model list to see what each model costs; Nano Banana 2 shows "16 cr / image". Then open the image settings beside it and check: Aspect ratio Landscape, Resolution 1K, Images per prompt 4. Select Create. The four images cost 64 credits.

The image settings open above the prompt: Aspect ratio Square, Resolution 1K, Images per prompt 4 and Vary prompts Off, with Nano Banana 2 selected and the mug prompt typed.

We made our birds on Recraft V4.1 Pro instead, at 59 credits an image. We wrote a separate prompt for each one, with the bird on a curling branch, on a bending stem, in a nest and in a puddle.

A painted yellow bird with a small crest, blue wing tips, a black tie and black-and-white striped legs, standing on a curled stem among coral, green and lavender leaves and eyeing a tiny seed with half-closed eyes.

A painted yellow bird with a long orange beak, blue wings, a black tie and orange striped legs, clinging to a bending stem and reaching for a small red fruit among coral and lavender leaves.

The four birds look different from each other. Each prompt named the yellow body, the blue wing tips, the tie and the striped legs, and all four birds have them. The beak, the crest and the leg colors were not in the prompts, and they change from image to image. The model fills in anything the prompt doesn't name, and it fills it in differently each time.

Pick one and use it as a reference

Choose the bird you want in every scene. Look at the bird itself, since the background changes in every scene. We picked the bird on the curling branch, which has a small crest, a short beak and black-and-white legs.

Point at the image and select Use as reference along its bottom edge. The image moves into a tray above the prompt, and the button now reads Remove reference. The aspect ratio switches to match the image.

The chosen mug in the feed with the pointer over it, showing Use as reference along its bottom edge.

Before you write the next prompt, select the lock beside the tray (Keep images after generating). The tray empties after each Create, and the lock keeps the bird there for every scene.

Make the scenes

Recraft models can't use reference images, so the scenes are made on Nano Banana 2. Describe the new scene, then name the features that must stay. Ours:

Change Image 1 into a whimsical grocery-store story: the yellow bird peers around a pyramid of mangoes, watching two other tropical birds choose fruit together; one offers the other the perfect mango while his own basket holds one comically tiny berry. Give him fully open round eyes, raised brows, and an astonished smile instead of sleepy eyelids. Keep his yellow body, blue wing tips, black tie, and striped legs recognizable. Image 2 guides the warm gouache brushwork, peach-orange and lavender palette, luminous softness, and paper grain. Clear editorial illustration with calm margins.

Image 1 is the bird, the first image in the tray. Image 2 was a second reference we added for the brushwork and colors. If your tray holds only the bird, leave out the sentence about Image 2.

The prompt asks for a new expression and lists the four features to keep, so the model knows which parts of the reference to copy.

Set Images per prompt to 1 and select Create. One image costs 16 credits, with one reference or two.

The prompt box with the chosen mug in the reference tray above the prompt about a sunlit cafe table, set to one image.

The crested yellow bird in a black tie peeks around a pyramid of mangoes in a market, wide-eyed and smiling, while a green parrot hands a mango to a lilac bird beside baskets of fruit.

The bird is still in the tray, so write the next scene and select Create again. Our next two scenes are below, with their prompts under the images.

The crested yellow bird in a black tie steps along an open window sill, beak open in delight, watching two small birds dance on a desk in the classroom inside, framed by coral and lavender leaves.

The crested yellow bird in a black tie grins on a mossy branch, holding out half a passion fruit to a coral-pink bird with a lilac crest and a teal scarf, who holds her own half on the next branch.

The finished set

Four birds and two scenes cost 96 credits. The birds cost 64 and each scene costs 16. The 4 credits you have left are not enough for another image on these models.

To make all three scenes, make the four birds on Nano Banana 2 Lite instead, at 8 credits an image. The birds then cost 32 and the three scenes cost 48, for 80 credits in total.

The images on this page cost us 284 credits. The four Recraft birds cost 236 and each of the three scenes cost 16.

To keep a file, point at the image and select the download button in its top corner.

What to try next

Reference images: keep a character or a product the same across a whole series.
Collections: save the bird and its style reference once and use them in any prompt.