I Open-Sourced an AI Skill for Generating Minimalist Hand-Drawn Illustrations

Most AI-generated illustrations today look highly polished, glossy, and over-rendered.

While that's impressive, I wanted something different.

I wanted illustrations that feel simple, human, playful, and intentionally imperfect — the kind of sketches you'd find in a notebook or on a whiteboard.

So I built and open-sourced Kunaal's Illustrations.

The Goal

The objective was straightforward:

• Minimalist black line art
• Lots of whitespace
• Wobbly hand-drawn aesthetics
• Consistent character style
• Easy generation through AI prompts

Instead of creating photorealistic artwork, the focus is on communication and storytelling.

What Can It Generate?

Cozy Lifestyle Scenes

Examples:

• Boy reading a book with a coffee
• Girl working on a laptop
• Friends chatting at a dining table
• Someone studying late at night

Technical Concepts

It can also visualize abstract ideas such as:

• Complex server architectures
• API workflows
• System design concepts
• Developer productivity themes

Documentation & Presentations

The illustrations work particularly well in:

• Notion pages
• Blog posts
• Technical documentation
• Slide decks
• Educational content

Built-in Character Style

The skill includes a consistent visual identity through:

• Reference Boy
• Reference Girl

These characters provide style consistency while still allowing generation of completely new scenes and concepts.

Example Prompt

Generate an illustration: A boy and a girl sitting opposite each other at a dining table saying hi and hello.

Why Open Source?

I wanted:

• Anyone to use it
• Anyone to improve it
• A reusable illustration style for creators and developers

Open-source tools become far more useful when the community can adapt and extend them.

GitHub Repository:

@Yuvakunal/kunaal-illustrations

Contributions, feedback, and suggestions are welcome.

If you find it useful, consider giving the repository a ⭐.

Happy building!