A love of Sleeping Beauty's art style became an AI-illustrated children's book
A custom GPT built for one beloved aesthetic grew into a picture book about how intelligence reflects the clarity of its input, now in its third version.
This student started with something simple: a love for the look of the animated film Sleeping Beauty. From a class on building GPTs, they went on to write and illustrate a full children's book with AI, acting as author and art director at once. Their story shows how a small spark of delight can carry you through three versions of a real creative project.
Illustrated children's book made with ChatGPT
Before
They had a clear sense of what they found beautiful, especially the illustration style of the animated Sleeping Beauty. What they did not yet have was a way to turn that love into something they could make themselves. A whole illustrated book, with consistent pictures and a story with meaning, was not yet on the table.
“When we learned how to create GPTs, i created one that reflected the illustration style of the animated film Sleeping Beauty - simply because I love that aesthetic.”
In their own words
The turning point
When the class learned how to create GPTs, they built one that captured the Sleeping Beauty illustration style, simply because they loved it. That small experiment opened a bigger idea: a story loosely inspired by the fairy tale that works as a visual metaphor for how intelligence, AI or human, reflects the clarity of its input. They wrote the text together with ChatGPT and made a second version of the GPT for the images, because the original look was too tied to another story.
“Chat gets a little over excited and can easily drift both with story and visuals.”
In their own words
After
They now have the third version of their illustrated book, which they call the best one yet. Along the way they became a firm art director, guarding visual consistency and pushing back on ChatGPT's suggestions. When a long thread began to drag, they had ChatGPT summarise the story beats, text, visuals, audience and progress, then started fresh with that summary, which made the work much smoother.
What it lets people do
The book gives children, and the adults reading with them, a fairy-tale way to think about a modern idea: what comes out reflects the clarity of what goes in. It also shows other creators a practical way to work with AI on a long project without losing the thread.
What they learned
Their biggest lesson is to stay clear on the intention of the story and to be a strong art director of the visuals. AI can get excited and drift, so they learned to challenge its recommendations and to reset with a clear summary when things got heavy.
“The biggest learning is the stay clear on what your intention for the story is and be a strong art director of the visuals, especially with guarding consistency.”
In their own words
Illustrated children's book made with ChatGPT was built during AI Mastery.
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Written 15 February 2026 Submitted by the storyteller
Every story is written by a Mindvalley student or by someone our teachers have worked with. How we collect and check stories
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