Gradient and Noise Styles, With a Prompt Each

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Gradient and noise

How a colour transition is handled, and the wording for each one.

These five are all decisions about one thing: what happens between two colours. A smooth blend, a blend broken by noise, a blend that ignores the object entirely, a blend faked with scattered dots, or three channels pulled apart so the blend happens at the edges. Each has a different reason for existing, and three of them come from a limitation rather than a preference, which is why they still look like something rather than like nothing.

Smooth, and broken

3

Three ways a blend behaves, from perfectly clean to deliberately noisy.

Mesh Gradient: Several colour points bleeding into each other across one smooth field, with no edges at all.
Mesh Gradient
Several colour points bleeding into each other across one smooth field, with no edges at all.
Grainy Gradient: A smooth blend broken by heavy noise, densest where the two colours meet.
Grainy Gradient
A smooth blend broken by heavy noise, densest where the two colours meet.
Iridescent Gradient: A form with no colour of its own, washed in a continuous spectrum that ignores its materials.
Iridescent Gradient
A form with no colour of its own, washed in a continuous spectrum that ignores its materials.

Faked and broken

2

Two conventions that come from a machine failing, and stayed because people liked the failure.

Dither: A gradient faked with a regular pattern of two-colour dots, because the palette has no in-between.
Dither
A gradient faked with a regular pattern of two-colour dots, because the palette has no in-between.
Chromatic Split: The red, green and blue channels pulled apart, so every edge fringes in colour.
Chromatic Split
The red, green and blue channels pulled apart, so every edge fringes in colour.

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Other style groups

Drawn traditionsHow a character is drawn by hand, and the wording that gets each tradition.9 drawn stylesAnime and mangaThe looks from Japanese animation and comics, and the wording for each one.8 anime and manga stylesPaintedThe painting media, and the wording that gets each one out of a model.7 painting mediaMade by handStyles built from real material, and the wording that gets each one.10 handmade stylesRendered in 3DHow a computer model is made to look like something, and the wording.11 render stylesSoft materialsThe surfaces that make a hard form soft, and the wording for each one.10 soft surfacesApplied overStyles that put one thing on top of another, and the wording for each.4 layered stylesCharacter shapesHow a figure is built and finished, and the wording for each decision.12 character stylesStudio looksThe looks asked for by studio name, described by what is on the screen.8 studio looksTechnical drawingHow a thing is specified rather than depicted, and the wording for each.7 technical styles
Print stylesPrinting a sheet rather than drawing a character? The same reference, for ink on paper.

They are all decisions about what happens between two colours: blended smoothly, broken by noise, ignoring the subject, faked with dots, or split across three channels.