Hanfu Portraits

The hanfu register

Hanfu is three thousand years of cut held in one silhouette — the cross-collar, the flowing sleeve, the line that falls rather than clings. This pack walks three dynasties. The first is Tang: a qixiong ruqun, a sheer cross-collar top over a chest-high silk skirt with a wide-sleeved pibo shawl, crimson, sapphire and celadon, a jade hairpin and a gold buyao step-shake, in a garden pavilion above a lotus pond. The second is Ming: an aoqun, a stand-collar ao jacket with small gilt buttons over a pleated qun skirt, navy, vermilion and forest-green with silver and gold embroidery, a phoenix hairpin, before a painted gold-leaf folding screen. The third is Song: a beizi, a slim long open-front jacket over a cream ruqun, pale sage, dove grey and muted indigo, restrained, in a scholar's interior with a calligraphy scroll. Three takes each, colourway and pose shifting, so the nine portraits read like a real shoot across three eras in one face.

These are photographs, not paintings — and not anime. The register leans elegant and historical, but the output is photoreal: your face and your features, the silk's quiet sheen against raised gold thread, the jade cool, the pavilion and the screen soft behind you. It borrows the cut of hanfu, the dynasty-correct grammar, and the register of a Chinese portrait shoot; it does not turn you into a cartoon, a game render, or a costume sticker.

How to photograph yourself for hanfu portraits

Good input, good portrait.

1. Soft, even lightFace a window with indirect daylight on you. Skip the overhead bulb and hard noon sun — both flatten the face and kill the modelling the pack is built around.
2. Front or three-quarter, at eye levelHold the camera level with your eyes. No selfie up-angle, no looking down — the hanfu register wants a composed face square to the lens.
3. Plain wall behind youLet the pack build the garden pavilion, the painted screen and the scholar's room. A clear backdrop means the whole likeness budget goes to your face.
4. Hair off the faceThe hairpin and buyao sit at the hairline, set well back. Hair pulled away from your face lets the pack place the ornament and the cross-collar cleanly instead of inventing what it can't see.

Frequently asked questions

Is this photoreal, or is it an anime or game-style render?

Photoreal. The register is historical and elegant, but the output is a photograph of you — real silk with its sheen, raised embroidery, jade that catches a cool highlight, real light. It is not a cartoon, an illustration, or a game render. If you want a drawn hanfu, this isn't that pack; if you want a photographic portrait in real hanfu, it is.

Are the three looks historically distinct?

Yes — that's the point. Tang gets the qixiong ruqun and the pibo shawl, Ming the stand-collar aoqun with gilt buttons, Song the slim beizi over a cream ruqun. Three dynasties, three silhouettes, all on your one face, so you see the spread rather than one guess.

Will the photos look like me?

Every photo looks like you, well photographed. If one is nearly right, say what to change, in your own words.

Do I have to write a prompt?

No. There is nothing to write: you pick a pack, and it is ready in seconds.

How many photos of myself do I add?

Between six and twenty, from different days and in different light, with your face clear. We check each one when you add it.

What happens to the photos I add?

They are used only to create your model, on our own servers in the European Union. They are not shared and not sold.

When the hanfu pack fits

• A hanfu-revival portrait for the feed, in the dynasty register you actually love — Tang, Ming, or Song.
• The cultural-photography trip you didn't book, or the garden shoot the weather cancelled.
• A Lunar New Year or festival look with real historical weight rather than a generic filter.
• Diaspora users picturing themselves in the dress of their heritage, from a flat in Vancouver, London, or Singapore.
• A profile picture that signals taste and history instead of another phone photo.
• A gift for the friend deep in the hanfu world who would never sit for the shoot themselves.

About narcis

Most AI photo tools put every pose, job, era, and style in one giant catalog. The photos all look like every other AI photo on the internet — a glaze over a stock face. Narcis goes the other way. One job: photos of you that look like photographs. You add at least 6 photos of yourself, and we create your AI model from them. Your photos are ready in a few hours, and we email you when they are. Then this pack and every other pack on Narcis can be made with your face. Each pack is curated against real references — paintings, photographers, places — and tested on real faces before it goes live. Built and run by one small team, on our own servers.