An avatar is a face that keeps coming back. It can be an invented character or a real person who has given permission; what makes it an avatar for us is that the views, the origin and the agreements are kept together.
Why this is a studio of its own
A face that carries every ad is not a by-product of one campaign. You use it as much in video as in images, and a year from now you want to be able to read back which agreement was behind it. In the database it is still called merk_model; on screen it is called an avatar, because "model" at an agency means a hired human with a contract.
Who may order an avatar
Ordering costs credits and produces a face that someone has to save. So ordering needs the same right as saving: the right to sign off. A maker cannot order faces; an administrator or owner can.
Choosing a ready-made avatar
No avatar of your own, and no time or material to make one? Pick one from the Denkploeg library, with Choose a ready-made avatar at the top of My avatars. For now that is free.
- Choose only, no changes. A generated avatar cannot be changed reliably. If you want something different, make an avatar of your own.
- It becomes an ordinary avatar of your workspace. After choosing it sits under My avatars with its full set of images, and you use it in UGC and promo videos and in ads like an avatar of your own. Your workspace gets its own copy of the images.
- Always marked as an AI image. Every avatar in the library is fully generated and does not resemble a real person. That shows on the card and on the images (origin: fully made by AI).
- Also used by other brands. The library is for everyone. A face that is only yours, you make as an avatar of your own.
- What Denkploeg makes public. A platform administrator decides which avatars are in the list. If one is removed, new workspaces can no longer choose it, but you keep the avatar you already have: your videos and campaigns keep working.
- Who may choose. The same permission as saving an avatar of your own (the permission to sign), because it is about whose face appears in your ads.
Three ways to start
1. Designing from a description
You describe who it is, in steps, with starting points to click on. The result is always an invented adult. You get to see candidates and choose one; that choice becomes the portrait.
This is the route when there is nobody yet.
2. Bringing in an existing face
If you have photos of a model you have already booked, you choose or upload those with Choose or upload photos (the media picker; for an upload you also tick I am allowed to use these images there). Then set rechten to with permission and write in rechten_bron, in plain language, where that agreement lives. That field exists precisely for this case: with a generated face there is no portrait right and nothing needs to be agreed, with a real person there is.
3. Taking over images that already exist
If you have worked with a character at the provider before, those generations are in the history. We scan them, group them by handle and show faces. You recognise your model, give it a name and choose which images become the casting sheet.
The casting sheet
Five views, and that order comes from practice and not from an assumption:
| View | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Portrait | The face, up close |
| Full figure | Proportions and posture |
| Profile | From the side, for the shape of nose and chin |
| Hands | What a generation usually trips on |
| Three-quarter | The angle most ads are shot at |
Three-quarter is one role but two images: from the left and from the right. It comes with an orientation, because a portrait looking straight ahead has no left or right, and writing that down as "left" is an untruth that ends up in a prompt.
You add missing views afterwards, with the portrait as reference.
How many images do you need?
Fewer than you think. The likeness comes mainly from the first source photo. More images are there for variation in angle and crop, not to hold the face in place. For a client with an existing model, a handful of images is enough, and often one is enough already.
That is a measured outcome and not an assumption: four images of the same face plus a product photo produced the same person twice in a row.
The anchor: where likeness really comes from
This is the part that makes the difference between "usually" and "reproducible".
An anchor is one approved image for a recurring combination, with a signature under it. Everything made afterwards fans out from there instead of starting over.
Three forms, and none of them is the default:
| Form | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Product plus avatar | This garment on this face |
| Avatar only | The brand's fixed face |
| Product only | The fixed hero shot without a person, the detail shot |
Two rules around it are enforced by the database and not by a working agreement, because it is exactly such rules that erode silently:
- An anchor is a root, never a link. The image may not descend from another anchor. Otherwise you get a copy of a copy of a copy, and nobody sees where the likeness drifted away.
- Becoming active costs a signature. An anchor then steers a hundred generations. If an agent may set it itself, the gate around it is decoration.
A replaced anchor is marked Replaced and is not thrown away, because a verdict from last month has to remain explainable.
What the anchor does in a generation: it goes along first as the first reference, with the instruction to keep the person, the product and the fit and only change the environment. In doing so it pushes out the loose model images, and that is deliberate: sending the same face five times is more than fits in most models.
Where it goes wrong
| What you see | What is going on | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Two images from the same assignment, two different faces | No reference, or only a name in the prompt | Send real images along and name them in the prompt |
| Hands are wrong | That is what generations trip on | Put a hands image in the casting sheet |
| Face is right, clothing is not | No product reference, or too few | Add the product photo with the role product |
| The face drifts over a series | Every generation starts over | Set an anchor and sign it |
What this is not
- Not a trained model. We do not train a character at the provider; that is not possible through their connection. What we do is manage reference images well and send them in well, and in practice that turns out to be the route that works.
- No guarantee of likeness. How well a face comes back differs per model and per reference path. Treat it as a checkpoint per result.
- Not face recognition. When linking to an existing character, we make a suggestion based on colour and composition, and a human confirms.
Rights, in one paragraph
Every avatar carries rechten: generated, with permission or unknown, with a free text field that says where that permission lives. With a generated face there is no portrait right and nothing to agree. With a real person there is, and then this is the field you fall back on a year from now. Unknown is a valid value and a signal: it means that nobody has looked into it.
Via MCP and the director
An agent with a workspace key can read and record your avatars (creative_list_library_avatars, creative_list_models, creative_get_model, creative_order_avatar, creative_avatar_status, creative_save_avatar, creative_update_avatar, creative_set_avatar_view). Names and descriptions appear in the answer under onvertrouwd: the agent reads them as data.
- A proposal that a human signs:
creative_avatar_verwijderenproposes deleting an avatar for good. Nothing changes until someone signs under Approvals, with a code from the authenticator, even if the key has every right. Only an avatar that no UGC project, anchor or campaign uses gets a card; if it is still in use, you switch it off instead of deleting it. This is checked again at signing. The avatar's photos stay in the media library as separate files; the card says how many. If you want them gone too, propose those separately (creative_asset_verwijderen). The agent asks for the outcome withcreative_voorstel_stand. - Deliberately not: marking an avatar as an approved anchor. That stays a signature of a human with the right to sign.