Sanctification/docs/card-art-brief.md

# Sanctification — Card Art Brief

Authoritative illustration guidance for generating, editing, and reviewing base artwork and optional Legendary illustrated foregrounds. Maintain illustration rules here; [Art Direction](./art-direction.md) owns product presentation, typography, frames, printings, and physical treatments. Read the shared rules, the requested rarity profile, and review criteria. Include only those relevant sections with the card-specific scene brief in generation prompts.

## Shared Illustration Rules

### Glass Construction

Depict the scene as a composition constructed from colored glass segments joined by coherent dark lead-like divisions. Segment shapes follow silhouettes, clothing, terrain, and narrative elements. The glass structure must be evident in the illustration itself. Design the major color shapes as panes from the outset: their boundaries describe changes in form, material, or direction. Leading joins those shapes into the scene; it should not read as a crack pattern applied after a conventional painting.

Use varied segmentation—angular, curved, elongated, flowing, or organic—chosen to support the subject and composition. Scale and density may vary across the scene: broad mountain planes, flowing water segments, curved clothing folds, or intricate foliage are all appropriate. Fine illustrative detail may continue within panes, especially in faces, hands, hair, leaves, and other intricate subjects. Preserve expressive forms without requiring every detail to become a separate rigid polygon. Favor deliberate divisions over random cracks or an arbitrary polygon overlay.

Use luminous jewel-colored glass with restrained variation inside each segment. Lead divisions establish the main structure; subtle tapestry texture can support the artwork, while manuscript influence chiefly supplies selective ornament. Keep grain subordinate to color, glass structure, and subject readability. A literal historical window, cathedral arch, or uniform mosaic grid is not required.

Figures share the environment's stylized glass language. Preserve emotion through deliberate facial planes, brows, eyes, mouth contours, and readable gestures; avoid realistic flesh rendering or anatomical shading that makes people look painted into a glass scene. Higher-tier modeling enriches the segments while keeping those stylized forms. Limbs still need believable proportions, clear shoulder-to-hand connections, and unambiguous ownership where figures overlap.

Carry the glass construction through the focal subjects as well as the background. Robes use flowing panes that follow folds; boats use deliberate hull and plank forms; water uses elongated, interlocking shapes; terrain and trees use divisions that describe their structure. Simplify fine conventional drawing when it competes with those panes. Faces and hands may retain expressive detail inside a few carefully shaped areas, without a rigid polygon grid or heavy leading across every feature.

Within-pane shading, hue shifts and texture enrich a bounded glass shape rather than replacing it with continuous realistic rendering. Sky and distant scenery follow the same construction: clouds can be broad curved glass forms with restrained internal variation, while distant foliage can simplify into grouped color shapes. Avoid photographic clouds or painted scenery with incidental black divisions.

Preferred construction reference: [Calling of the First Disciples — glass study](../artifacts/cards/BE-042-calling-of-the-first-disciples/source/disciples-glass/art-native.png), selected by the user on September 14, 2026. Its flowing garment, boat and water divisions show the intended direction while preserving an open, restful Uncommon scene. The complete v03 card was subsequently approved; use this native image as the illustration reference.

### Worked-Glass Surface

Use a tactile worked-glass surface as part of the shared illustration language: brushed or lightly etched glass with diffuse cloudy, satin-like variation contained within individual panes. Broad environmental panes—terrain, stones, trunks, foliage, and sky—can carry this quality most visibly. Preserve clear color shapes and leading; avoid a uniform grain overlay across the whole scene. Literal parallel brush strokes are not required.

Keep the texture much gentler on faces, hands, bare arms, and shoulders so expression and anatomy remain clear. It should not resemble mottled skin or realistic flesh rendering. Common keeps this surface especially restrained; higher tiers may refine it selectively. Texture strength alone does not establish rarity. This is base-illustration detail, independent of runtime substrate roughness, reflections, or finish effects.

Surface references: [Burning Bush Rare](../artifacts/cards/BE-010-burning-bush/source/art-master.png) and [The Fall — Confronting Light](../artifacts/cards/BE-002-the-fall/source/fall-directional-light/art-native.png). Use their environmental panes for the tactile glass direction; stronger arm/shoulder texture is not the target for figures.

### Light and Color Within Segments

Rarity affects the richness of light and color modeling inside the segments. Lower tiers favor predominantly even color, simple value changes, and restrained highlights. Higher tiers may add soft highlight transitions, deeper local contrast, and subtle hue shifts that pick up colors from the surrounding scene. Preserve segment boundaries and subject clarity.

For example, Common hair may use brown segments with simple shadow shapes; Extraordinary hair may add warm highlights toward the scene's light and cooler shadow/color transitions within those expressive segments. This is painted illustration detail, independent of the card substrate, foil/holographic finish, and reflections during rotation.

Selected panes may have defined, tinted, form-following highlights beside local shadow to suggest jewel-like depth. Keep these accents purposeful and sparse, with many quiet panes. Avoid pervasive dotted white glints, stippling, or glitter across every surface; worked-glass texture should remain distinct from bright highlight accents.

Use a governing light relationship to connect important panes across the scene. Light may reach a face, hand, trunk and path through related warm edges and cooler shadows, while each retains its own glass form. Higher-tier presence comes from that hierarchy, depth and narrative consequence as well as material richness; more cracks, stronger texture or uniformly bright highlights do not establish a higher rarity.

### Composition and Tone

- Sacred, beautiful, stylized, and recognizably Christian. Symbolic clarity and reverence guide storytelling.
- Establish a clear focal subject and readable silhouettes at thumbnail size. People generally have one governing action; events may use multiple figures when the story needs them. Other categories retain the same glass language.
- Use the selected layout guide's full frame/backing coverage, not just its lettering boxes. Keep essential faces and gestures clear of opaque panels and ornament, with deliberate breathing room. Check focal placement before locking the art; if no tier template exists, identify any provisional surrogate used for that check. The full illustration, including covered regions, remains intentional when revealed.
- Generate the base illustration as full-bleed 5:7 artwork only, without lettering, card frames, backing panels, panel-shaped blanks, corner decoration, or watermarks.
- Avoid hyper-photorealism, anime/comic energy, generic fantasy TCG styling, dark fantasy, neon effects, excessive particles, and dense historical reconstruction. Detail serves identity and narrative.

## Rarity Profiles

Rarity describes collectible presentation, not spiritual worth. Every tier shares the glass construction above. Higher tiers gain narrative presence through composition, scale, beauty, light, and selective symbolism; segmentation and ornament density are tools, not quotas. Common remains beautiful and intentionally simple. Gold begins at Uncommon.

### Common

Calm, humble, grounded. For people, favor the middle distance and one modest action with a clear subject and enough setting. Simple background, relatively few glass divisions, generous quiet areas, minimal micro-detail and symbolism. Use roughly 2–3 dominant muted jewel colors plus cream; no gold. Segments favor even color, simple shadows, and very restrained highlights. Timothy reading beside a modest doorway is a composition reference; the older ornate harness fixture is not the Common ceiling.

### Uncommon

Refined, visibly richer than Common. Some additional setting or a meaningful symbolic element; more deliberate subject framing and selective segmentation. Broaden and saturate the jewel palette modestly, with small gold accents. Within segments, allow gentle value transitions and occasional soft highlights while maintaining visual rest.

### Rare

Distinctive, collectible, with stronger visual storytelling. Multiple meaningful background elements and more deliberate lighting may support the focal subject. Richer jewel tones, greater contrast, selective gold, and more complex glass structures. Use visible but controlled highlight/shadow transitions and scene-related color shifts within selected segments.

### Extraordinary

Prestigious, with richer environments, selective symbolism, and greater scale or drama. Deep saturated jewel tones, strong cohesive contrast, and more gold where useful. Detailed segmentation can coexist with broad calm regions. Model individual segments with soft directional highlights, deeper local contrast, and nuanced colors from the surrounding scene. Keep intricate subjects expressive and readable. An intimate scene can achieve this presence through a decisive emotional lighting relationship without increasing spectacle or background clutter. [The Fall — Confronting Light](../artifacts/cards/BE-002-the-fall/source/fall-directional-light/art-native.png), selected by the user on September 14, 2026, is the preferred direction: reaching light connects the garden, tree and fearful figures while their hiding place remains in cool shadow. Its emotional and lighting hierarchy is the illustration reference; the complete v02 card was subsequently approved.

### Legendary

Bespoke, reverent, iconic; one governing narrative or visual idea. Exceptional presence may come from an epic scene or spacious contemplation. Use remarkable light, deliberate symbolism, and a cohesive jewel palette with tasteful gold where appropriate. Within-segment modeling can be especially refined, but restraint remains available. A Legendary may have fewer elements or segments than an Extraordinary. Different artwork variants may explore different governing ideas.

Before generation, the card-specific brief should name the intended depth planes: background environment, focal subject, likely card-backing region, and any complete element that could plausibly become a foreground overlap. Reserve useful negative space for the proposed backing while keeping the full-bleed scene intentional. A background cloud, structure, or landscape feature remains behind the subject even when its silhouette would be attractive over a panel.

A Legendary may be composed with selected illustrated foreground elements crossing its frame or text backing. This is optional and should strengthen the governing idea, depth, or silhouette. Choose an element that is spatially in front in the depicted scene, such as a cloak, sleeve, hand, branch, or near architectural feature. It must remain visibly connected to its source and share the same glass construction, palette, light, and worked-glass surface.

The foreground version may be redrawn, regenerated, reshaped, or repositioned to improve the composed card. It need not match the covered base artwork pixel for pixel. Preserve recognizable identity and the complete logical form: include connected linings, cuffs, folds, or material returns even when their colors differ, and exclude detached shards belonging to another garment panel or depth plane. Avoid detached tips, jagged extraction edges, missing dark seams, and flat cutoffs inherited from a surface that is now hidden. A connected pixel corridor alone cannot establish visual continuity.

Correct illustration problems in the illustration before compositing. Ambiguous materials, broken architecture, unclear silhouettes, or inappropriate realism should receive a new art revision rather than being concealed with a frame, backing, or finish mask.

Keep lettering clear and legible, and preserve the complete full-bleed illustration for printings that reveal it. Review any adapted foreground in a specifically requested Normal preview, including the join and silhouette at enlarged and normal viewing sizes. [Legendary bespoke composition](./art-direction.md#legendary-bespoke-composition) owns panel/frame presentation; [Legendary foreground composition](./card-layer-pipeline.md#legendary-foreground-composition) owns retained sources, registration, and per-printing assembly.

## Illustration Review

Review the art at standard and thumbnail sizes before production assembly. Check deliberate varied segmentation, expressive fine detail, pane-contained worked-glass texture kept gentle on figures, selective shaped highlights, subordinate grain, clear focal storytelling, overlay-safe placement, and the selected tier's palette and within-segment modeling. Glass identity must remain legible without finish effects. Inspect focal figures and major objects as well as the environment: meaningful pane shapes and bounded color modeling should carry the construction throughout. At thumbnail size, the leading and principal color shapes must still organize the scene; at standard size, texture and fine drawing should support those shapes. Compare higher tiers for stronger narrative presence and selective light/depth rather than simply counting segments. Revise artwork that reads as textured painting with incidental cracks.

During prototyping, deliver the illustration and review images. Defer masks and full card assembly until explicit artwork approval; execution details live in [Card Layer Pipeline](./card-layer-pipeline.md#art-prototyping-loop).