# Kintsugi (金継ぎ) — image generation prompt
# IndexStyle No.518 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images in the visual language of Kintsugi, a technique from Vessel and Craft Techniques, 15th century–.

## What to make

Make the kind of thing this style exists for: building a display where broken prototypes or stock are shown mended instead of discarded, or leaving a visible record of repair or revision on a product or a screen. Choose one subject and hold it across all four images.

## What has to be visible

- Thin gold or silver lines that follow the break exactly
- Line width that varies, widening into filled areas where a chip was lost
- A trace of dark lacquer showing at the edge of the metal
- Metal lines crossing the vessel's original painted decoration without regard for it

Someone who knows this style should be able to point at each of these in the finished image.

## How to build it

- Layout and structure: The break dictates the lines, so fit the fragments first and then decide how much metal each seam takes
- Type and lettering: Add no lettering, and let the metal lines share the surface with whatever marks the vessel already carries
- Material and surface: Urushi lacquer joins and hardens the pieces, then gold or silver powder is laid over the seam
- Colour: #E6DDCC carries the ground, #C9A227 is the colour the style is remembered by, #1B1815 holds text and outlines. Read off real works, so treat them as a direction rather than a fixed palette.
- What it should feel like: calm, intimacy, technique

## What goes wrong

Designing the gold lines before anything breaks places them where no stress runs, and the piece looks patterned rather than mended.

## Across the four

Keep every cue above present in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows the range this style covers rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period language described above.

Full design spec: https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi/design.md