The emotion list is the heart of this prompt: nine specific, slightly negative states (surprised, annoyed, confused, frustrated, thoughtful, sarcastic, worried, bored, curious) that cover most chat reactions better than the usual happy-sad-angry set. It asks for overacted, readable expressions at small sizes and identical hair, clothing and proportions in every cell. From our fictional curly-haired reference, the model produced nine clear expressions, but rendered them closer to realistic photos than a stylised 3D cartoon, on white rather than true transparency. To push the cartoon look, describe the style in neutral terms ('stylised 3D animated character, big head, simplified features') and expect to remove backgrounds afterwards.
