Grown in Ideogram · a case study

How Pea got its face.

Pea's the personal executive assistant I've been building. It needed a face that would look the same everywhere it went, and we found it in Ideogram. This is the whole story, including the bits that didn't work.

Stu Jordan, Chief Pea Grower October 2026 Ideogram 4.5

An early Pea with dark eyebrows — Eyebrows

An early Pea with one front tooth — One tooth

An early Pea with a full row of teeth — Teeth

The locked Pea: velvet bumps, a wide open grin with a pink tongue, no teeth — 5 October

A few faces that didn't make it, and the one that did.

3 October · early sketches

Where it started.

Pea started life as a flat cartoon on 3 October. Then we tried it in eight completely different styles, including clay, comic book, sticker and pixel art, and I didn't like any of them.

The first flat cartoon Pea, a sheet of poses and faces with dark outlines — The very first Pea

“I don't like any of them at all. You need to completely restart.”3 October

3 October · early sketches

Finding the body.

Starting again, we stopped worrying about the face and looked at what Pea was made of. Vinyl, ceramic, squishy, lacquer, wood and velvet. I liked the velvet straight away.

Pea as a squishy translucent toy — Squishy

“Velvet is the way to go.”3 October

A couple of rounds later it had googly eyes and a little belly button. Round the back it had a cute little bum, and that was the body. The mouth still wasn't right, but we'd get to that.

The velvet Pea from the front, side and back, with googly eyes, a belly button and a little bum crease

At first I loved the idea of Pea's sprout growing as it levelled up, with a second sprout along the way and a gold Pea at the top. A day later it just looked messy, so it went, and the levels became props instead.

Ten levels of Pea with sprouts that grow, double up and turn gold

SketchEarly concept sketches, made before Pea moved into Ideogram.

Night of 3 October · Ideogram

Into Ideogram.

The sketches gave us the body. What we needed next was the same Pea every time, across hundreds of pictures, so that night we moved Pea into Ideogram.

Funnily enough, the first thing it got right was the back. I loved it, and it went straight onto my X profile before Pea even had a front.

Pea from behind, in soft pink and cream light, with the sprout and the little bum crease

4 to 5 October · Ideogram

Then the face.

The face took a fair few rounds. We tried eyebrows, a single tooth and a full set of teeth, a stitched little mouth like a designer toy, and belly buttons from a hole to a spiral. The eyebrows went, and so did the teeth.

The belly button came from one picture where I spotted a little sideways dimple and liked it, and every Pea since has had one. Just after half past midnight on 5 October a batch of four came back, and the last one was Pea.

Pea with a stitched w-shaped mouth like a plush toy — Stitched mouth

A close-up of a spiral belly button — Spiral belly button

Pea with a round hole for a belly button — A hole

Pea with heavy eyelids and no brows, looking sleepy — Sleepy

5 October · Ideogram

Eight things that don't change.

Then I wrote down what can't change. There are eight things, pinned to that one picture, and the picture goes into every prompt. The pose, the prop, the room and the light can be anything.

Pea, the locked master picture: a round velvet green pea waving, with a curly sprout and a wide open grin

1
One sprout. Curl to the right, leaf low on the other side. Only ever one.
2
Velvet bumps. No eyebrows.
3
Googly eyes. A catchlight in each.
4
Raised cheeks, plain green. No blush.
5
The grin. Set low, tongue out, no teeth.
6
A sideways belly button. An innie, with a little crescent.
7
Matte velvet. One piece, no seams.
8
Short and stubby. Mitten hands, round feet, and a little bum crease at the back.

The method

How we prompt Ideogram.

Every Pea picture since has come from the same few moves.

One picture goes in.

The master goes in as the reference, @img_1, and every prompt starts with "Use @img_1 as the exact character". We only load the picture a scene needs. For Pea from behind that's the back view on its own, because if the front is loaded too, Ideogram turns Pea round to face you.

The front master, used as the reference for front views — Front views: the master

Pea from behind in a doorway, arms wide, holding back a storm of envelopes — Back views: the back view, alone

The same paragraph, every time.

Then comes the character block, a paragraph describing those eight things in plain words. It goes in word for word, every time, and it's how the rules change. When the cheeks lost their blush, the paragraph got a new line, and so did every picture after it.

5 October

Pea, the exact character from @img_1: a perfectly round seamless green pea with a soft matte velvet flocked finish, one single curly sprout on top (a short stem with one neat spiral curl and one small leaf), short stubby velvet arms with soft mitten hands, short stubby legs with round feet. Soft puffed same-green velvet brow bumps, plump raised cheeks with peach blush. Big glossy white oval eyes with large dark olive pupils and two bright sparkling catchlights each, full of life. A wide, warm, confident open smile, dark mouth with a pink tongue, no teeth. A tiny innie belly button: a short vertical crease ending in a small upturned crescent at its bottom, softly pressed into the velvet, same green, not a round hole. Charming and quietly confident, like a brilliant personal executive assistant, cute but never babyish. Pixar-quality 3D, soft studio light.

Since 20 October

Use @img_1 as the exact character: the same cute pea character with soft green velvet flocked fur, a round egg-shaped body, big round glossy eyes, two soft raised velvet bumps where eyebrows would be (no eyebrows), a wide open grin set low with a pink tongue and no teeth, a small sideways oval dimple belly button, short stubby velvet arms and legs, and one curly sprout on top whose curl turns to the viewer's right with one small leaf low on the opposite side of the stem. Keep it exactly on-model. IMPORTANT: no blush at all. No rosy, pink, peach or orange cheeks; the cheeks are exactly the same even velvet green as the rest of the body.

Struck through: gone. Underlined: added on 10 and 20 October.

Write the whole gag.

The scene is the only part that changes, and the trick is to write the whole joke. When I asked for little fires, the first round gave me Pea next to a candle. The next prompt asked for proper little fires popping up all over the desk, and a helmet that's obviously Pea's.

Pea in a plain red helmet beside a single candle — Round two

Pea in a red helmet with a pea-pod badge, hosing out little fires on the desk — Round three

“He's standing there beside a candle rather than a proper little fire.”20 October

Say where things go.

For my Zoom backgrounds I sit in the middle of the frame, so the prompt keeps the middle plain and names exactly where everything else goes.

A television studio with a Pea statue on the left, a lit pea sign on the right and a plain wall in the middle — 2720 × 1536, with the middle left plain

CENTRE RULE: a person will be composited in the middle of this frame later, covering roughly the middle 50% of the width from the lower edge up to about 75% of the height. Keep that central area simple, softly lit and slightly out of focus, with nothing important in it. All the hero elements sit in the left third and right third, and in the top band.

... FAR LEFT EDGE, inside the leftmost fifth of the frame only ...

Any shape.

Every format we needed came from the same Pea at the size we asked for. Tall story cards get one more block in the prompt, which keeps the top of the picture clear for the words.

A tall story card of Pea at an antique cash register with coins flying — 1440 × 2560

Tall vertical 9:16 phone story frame. Keep Pea and every prop in the middle of the frame, between about 30% and 80% of the height. The TOP 30% of the frame is only soft, plain, out-of-focus background with nothing in it. The BOTTOM 20% is only plain floor with nothing on it. No words, letters, numbers or logos anywhere.

Square 2000 × 2000
Feed 1792 × 2240
Story 1440 × 2560
Wide 2720 × 1536
3:2 2496 × 1664
Sides in multiples of 32

Check every one.

Every picture gets checked against the eight things at full size. About one in four goes back, usually for teeth sneaking into a grin or a curl that's flipped round.

Ideogram 4.5Magic Prompt offQuality HighFour at a time, twiceOne prompt at a time

5 to 21 October · Ideogram

Same Pea in every campaign.

Because the same picture went into every prompt, the same Pea turned up everywhere. The website, the waitlist emails, a run of Facebook gags, the story cards, my Zoom studio and a t-shirt print all came out of those three weeks. When the master changed, we swapped the reference and everything after it followed.

Pea holding a blank hello my name is sticker — Waitlist email

Pea from behind lifting a cloth over something hidden — Waitlist email

The Zoom studio with the Pea statue — Zoom

The t-shirt back print: Pea from behind — T-shirt print

Pea with a takeaway coffee — 2 Sweet Pea

Pea in dark sunglasses with a gold pass — 8 VIPea

Pea wearing a small gold crown — 10 Supreme Pea

The levels, shown by props. Pea itself never changes.

Pea as a nightclub bouncer with a clipboard

Pea guarding a door with a do not disturb sign

Pea in a shop window with a coming soon tag

Pea as a lifeguard above a pool of paperwork

Pea conducting an orchestra of office things

Pea in a fire helmet putting out little fires on a desk

Pea holding a big golden key with a pod handle

Pea in a guard's cap in front of a bank vault

Pea in a space helmet beside a pea-pod rocket

Pea surfing a wave of paperwork on a pod board

10 October · Ideogram

A small change to the sprout.

A few days in, I noticed that Pea's sprout, seen from behind, looked a lot like the p in our logo. So we turned the curl the other way and dropped the leaf low, and asked Ideogram for exactly that and nothing else. Eight came back with the new sprout, and the rest of Pea was untouched.

Sprout candidate one, an open spiral with the leaf low on the left

Sprout candidate four, with the leaf high on the stem

Sprout candidate eight, a tight loop near the stem

“The leaf needs to be much lower.”On number four

“We don't want to make it obviously a p, just so it can be one.”

20 October · Ideogram

No blush.

The last change was the cheeks. Ideogram kept giving Pea a soft blush and I didn't want one, so we added a line asking for no blush at all and cleaned up the cheeks on the reference picture. The next forty came back clean.

Pea's face with a warm glow on each cheek — Before

Pea's face with plain green cheeks — Before

October · from stills to video

Then it started to move.

Once the stills were right, we started turning them into video. The film on meetpea.com is the Ideogram cut-outs, animated.

For the short clips, an Ideogram still goes in as the first and last frame, and the video only has to move what's in between. In Do not disturb that's just Pea's eyes.

“We're bringing an entire character to life.”27 October

AI video

Do not disturb · the Ideogram still is the first and last frame

AI video

Not on Pea's watch · the Ideogram still is the last frame

The meetpea.com film · Ideogram cut-outs, animated · 61 seconds, with sound

Why Ideogram

Why Ideogram.

It holds a character.

One picture kept Pea the same across about seven hundred more.

You can prompt it like a brief.

Plain sentences describing Pea did the job. Magic Prompt stayed off the whole time.

Ask for one change, get one change.

The sprout turned the other way and nothing else about Pea moved.

It listens when you say no.

One line about the cheeks, and forty pictures came back clean.

The back works as well as the front.

Pea's bum made it onto a t-shirt print and a whole set of story cards.

Words come out right.

DO NOT DISTURB on the door and COMING SOON in the window, both first time.

Any shape, laid out how you want.

Square, feed, story and widescreen, with the middle kept clear when we asked.

Stills good enough to move.

The pictures became the first and last frames of our video.

What it means for branding is quite mind blowing. Keeping a character on model used to take an illustrator and a style guide, and for Pea it took one picture and a list of eight things.

The prompt

Every Pea picture started from this.

The green bits are where your own character goes.

Use @img_1 as the exact character: the things about it that never change, in plain words. Keep it exactly on-model. IMPORTANT: what it must never have, for example no blush at all, no teeth.

One line of style. Premium 3D animated film still, soft studio light, clean and uncluttered.

The scene, with the props in your character's world.

@img_1 is the one picture you locked

Pea's version, filled in

Use @img_1 as the exact character: the same cute pea character with soft green velvet flocked fur, a round egg-shaped body, big round glossy eyes, two soft raised velvet bumps where eyebrows would be (no eyebrows), a wide open grin set low with a pink tongue and no teeth, a small sideways oval dimple belly button, short stubby velvet arms and legs, and one curly sprout on top whose curl turns to the viewer's right with one small leaf low on the opposite side of the stem. Keep it exactly on-model. IMPORTANT: no blush at all. No rosy, pink, peach or orange cheeks; the cheeks are exactly the same even velvet green as the rest of the body.

Premium 3D animated feature film still, soft warm studio lighting, shallow depth of field, clean and uncluttered, no mess, cute and funny.

The pea dives horizontally through the air like a football goalkeeper making a spectacular save, arms fully stretched, catching a small yellow sticky note an instant before it slips into a narrow gap between wooden floorboards beside a desk leg. Determined, delighted face, a little motion blur, camera at floor level.

How we ran it

My agent did the typing in Ideogram, queued the runs and fetched the results, and I looked at the sheets and picked. The cut-outs came from a small script that keys out the plain backdrop and keeps the shadow, and Ideogram's Remove Background does the same job for a credit.