60 AI Art Styles (With Example Prompts)

A style name is a shortcut to hundreds of decisions: brushwork, palette, line, texture, lighting, even composition. Knowing a range of them is the fastest way to stop every image looking like the same glossy default.

Here are sixty, grouped by family, each with a short prompt phrase you can drop straight in after your subject.

How to use this list

Write your subject first, then the style phrase. A red fox in a snowy forest, then the style. Keep other style words out of the prompt so they don't compete.

If you want to combine two styles, stop at two and make sure they agree on light and texture. Most mixes go muddy.

A note on artist names: the painters below are historical, and their styles are part of art history. For living artists, describe the qualities you like (thick brushwork, muted palette, flat shapes) instead of using their name.

Painting and drawing

1. Van Gogh impasto: thick swirling impasto brushstrokes, vivid complementary colour.
2. Monet impressionist: soft broken brushwork, dappled light, pastel outdoor colour.
3. Klimt golden phase: gold leaf patterns, ornamental mosaic shapes, flat decorative figures.
4. Hopper solitude: quiet American realism, hard angled sunlight, lonely figures in empty rooms.
5. Dalí surrealism: dreamlike desert, melting impossible objects, crisp realist rendering.
6. Renaissance oil portrait: oil on canvas, chiaroscuro, rich glazes, dark background.
7. Watercolour storybook: loose watercolour washes, ink lines, paper texture, gentle palette.
8. Hand-painted anime: painted anime backgrounds, lush clouds, soft cel-shaded characters.
9. Charcoal sketch: charcoal on textured paper, smudged shading, expressive lines.
10. Mucha art nouveau: flowing art nouveau lines, floral halo, muted pastel poster.

Print, graphic and cartoon

11. Hokusai ukiyo-e: Japanese woodblock print, flat colour, bold outlines, Prussian blue.
12. Warhol pop art: silkscreen pop art, flat bright blocks, repeated panels.
13. Risograph neo-print: risograph print, two-colour overprint, grain and misregistration.
14. Retro screen print: vintage screen-printed poster, limited palette, halftone texture.
15. Linocut print: carved linocut, bold black lines, rough ink texture.
16. Stained glass: leaded stained glass, jewel colours, light glowing through.
17. Flat vector: clean flat vector illustration, simple shapes, no gradients.
18. Comic book hero: comic book art, ink outlines, halftone dots, dynamic pose.
19. Manga panel: black and white manga, screentone, speed lines.
20. Pixel art 16-bit: 16-bit pixel art, limited palette, crisp pixels.
21. Chibi kawaii: chibi proportions, big head, pastel kawaii style.
22. Rubber hose cartoon: 1930s rubber hose animation, bendy limbs, black and white.

3D and materials

23. Claymation: stop-motion clay, fingerprints in the clay, handmade set.
24. Felt and knit: needle-felted wool and knitted yarn, soft fuzzy texture.
25. Papercraft diorama: layered cut paper, soft shadows between layers.
26. Isometric diorama: isometric cutaway room, tiny detailed 3D scene.
27. Inflated 3D: puffy inflated balloon-like 3D shapes, glossy.
28. Liquid chrome: molten liquid chrome, mirror reflections, fluid shapes.
29. Frosted glass 3D: frosted translucent glass shapes, soft gradients.
30. Low-poly retro: low-poly 3D, flat shaded facets, retro game look.
31. Voxel world: voxel cubes, blocky 3D world.
32. Toy brick world: built entirely from plastic toy bricks.
33. Blind box vinyl: collectible vinyl toy, matte plastic, studio render.
34. 3D collectible figurine: painted resin figurine on a display base.
35. 3D animated feature: feature animation 3D, expressive characters, soft global light.
36. Game cinematic: AAA game cinematic, detailed 3D, dramatic lighting.
37. Studio product render: clean 3D product render, seamless backdrop, soft reflections.
38. Miniature world: tilt-shift miniature, tiny model town, shallow focus band.

Film looks

Many of these lean on a film stock. Our film stock prompts guide has the exact words for fifteen of them.

39. Film noir: black and white noir, hard shadows through blinds, smoke.
40. Technicolor Hollywood: three-strip Technicolor, saturated reds, classic studio glamour.
41. Spaghetti western: dusty western, extreme close-ups, burnt orange sun.
42. Nouvelle vague: French new wave, black and white street, natural light, candid.
43. Giallo horror: Italian giallo, saturated red and blue gels, stylised dread.
44. Hong Kong neon romance: smeared neon, step-printed blur, green and red night colour.
45. Bleach bypass war: desaturated, high contrast, silver-heavy war film.
46. 80s retro sci-fi: 1980s sci-fi, practical effects, haze, neon grids.
47. Super 8 home movie: Super 8 film, warm faded colour, light leaks, heavy grain.
48. 90s camcorder: VHS camcorder, scan lines, date stamp, soft video.
49. Desert epic: widescreen desert epic, vast dunes, heat haze, tiny figures.
50. Neon night film: night city on Cinestill 800T, red halation around lights.
51. Storybook symmetry: perfectly centred symmetrical framing, pastel palette, whimsical.
52. Timeless black and white: classic black and white photograph, rich tonal range.

Photo aesthetics

53. Cosmic dreamscape: surreal cosmic sky, nebula colours, dreamy scale.
54. Y2K flash night: direct on-camera flash, glossy Y2K party snapshot.
55. Polaroid instant: instant film, soft colour, white frame, vignette.
56. Early-2000s digicam: compact digital camera, harsh flash, low resolution charm.
57. Old money editorial: quiet luxury editorial, muted neutrals, natural light.
58. Hyperreal food: macro food photography, glistening detail, dramatic light.
59. Underwater: underwater photograph, caustic light, floating particles.
60. Raw documentary: candid documentary photograph, available light, grain.

Getting a style to stick

If a style comes out weak, reinforce it with one or two of its signature traits rather than repeating the name. Ukiyo-e wants flat colour and bold outlines. Film noir wants hard shadows through blinds.

And strip out generic quality words. "Hyperrealistic" will fight a woodcut every time.