Crew hero stills - candidate gallery

Premium hero-still exploration for the Crew landing page, benchmarked against cofounder.co's calm-premium animated hero. Each still passes the locked creature.png as a reference image (image-to-image) for identity consistency, then is a candidate to hand to HiggsField for image-to-video animation.

Locked creature reference:

ANIME FINAL (2026-07-11): both hero scenes re-rendered in the founder-approved anime / cel-shaded style (crisp cel shading, rich blue sky, DEFINED fluffy clouds) with two flagged defects fixed. Scene 1 now shows FOUR creatures (the two catch-players are both fully in frame with the big colorful beach ball mid-air; oak-leaner + belly-down reader with round glasses). ALL creatures in every image share the IDENTICAL big round close-set black eyes - the #1 fix. Two variants per scene; picks: Scene 1 = v1, Scene 2 = v2. Each via one GPT-image-1 /edits call with creature.png as the reference.

STYLE EXPLORATION (2026-07-11): the same "chill" scene (four creatures: oak-leaner, belly-down reader, two playing catch with a ball mid-air) rendered in FOUR more MATURE art styles - the soft storybook paint read too childish. Anime / mature 3D cartoon / clean flat vector / semi-realistic painterly (Ghibli-grade). Each via one GPT-image-1 /edits call with creature.png passed as the reference to hold the character. Pick a style direction.

FOUR-creature scenes (2026-07-11): two premium blue-sky hero scenes, each with FOUR of the locked creature, generated via one GPT-image-1 /edits call per image with creature.png passed as the reference (the same call that held identity for the single-creature win). Direct approach held identity cleanly across all four - no composite fallback needed. Same bright midday palette (blue sky, white clouds, green wildflower meadow). Picks: Scene 1 = chill v3, Scene 2 = work v2. Animation loop plan lives in claudecode-harness/docs/CREW-HERO-ANIMATION-PLAN.md. Prior single-creature blue-sky + warm-sunset stills kept below for reference.

ANIME FINAL - 4 creatures + consistent eyes Founder-approved anime / cel-shaded style with two fixes: Scene 1 now has FOUR creatures (both catch-players in frame + big beach ball mid-air), and ALL creatures in every image share the IDENTICAL big round close-set black eyes. Rich blue sky, defined fluffy clouds, wide + scattered. 2 variants per scene, creature held via creature.png reference. Picks: Scene 1 = v1, Scene 2 = v2.

REFINED v2 - wide + scattered - anime vs flat Refined poses + WIDE pulled-back framing (meadow seen from a bit afar, clean sky up top) with creatures SCATTERED naturally, not a lineup. Both hero scenes in the two finalist styles: anime cel-shaded vs flat Stripe/Notion vector. Creature held via creature.png reference.

Style exploration - same "chill" scene, 4 mature art directions Pick a style direction. Same base scene (oak-leaner, belly-down reader, two playing catch), creature held via creature.png reference. Softer storybook paint dropped for being too childish.

Scene 1 - "they already did your work, chilling" 4 creatures: leaning on an oak, reading in the grass, two playing catch (ball mid-air). Calm, cofounder.co-quiet, sky space up top.

Scene 2 - "they are working for you" 4 creatures: overseeing, note-taking + showing, typing on a laptop, a chalkboard with simple equations + floating ideas. A bit busier, still premium and legible.

Prior single-creature blue-sky + warm stills (reference)