ChatGPT and other AI platforms can produce some amusing, disturbing, and even adorable (if often in a possibly copyright-infringing way) images. But, much like how the AI tends to default to an overly optimistic and encouraging tone in its written responses, there's a tendency to soften or flatten image styles without explicit instructions, even when the source is as quirky and unique as, say, a young child's doodles.
You can overcome ChatGPT's preference for generic recreation of drawings with a little extra effort. Several people have shared their successes in bringing their children's drawings to "life," without ChatGPT turning a silly drawing of a bird into just another robin you'd see in your yard. Based on those and after some experiments, aided by my young son and his enthusiastic scribbles, I came up with a pretty successful, though still inconsistent, template for accurately bringing his interpretations of a dog, a bear, and a dragon a simulacrum of reality. The prompt is not short, but to work around ChatGPT's preferences, it's all necessary and might even benefit from being longer:
