# simonw/pedalican

> Source: <https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/14/pedalican/#atom-everything>
> Published: 2026-07-14 22:29:45+00:00

So I did, and now I have a cute little pelican on a bicycle bouncing around my desktop giving me updates on my Codex tasks.

The most interesting thing about this process was watching how the custom pet was created. I told it I wanted a custom pet that was a pelican riding a bicycle and GPT-5.6 Sol xhigh did the rest of the work, using several rounds with [gpt-image-2](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-image-2) to generate the necessary sprite assets.

I had it make [extensive notes](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/notes-on-creating-a-pet.md) and record all of the [intermediary steps](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/tree/main/run). My GItHub repo includes every generated image and combined sprite sheet, plus GIFs for each of the animation loops such as this one, called [waving.gif](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/run/qa/previews/waving.gif):

That GIF was compiled from [a single image](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/run/api-generation/waving.png) generated by `git-image-2`

that looked like this:

And *that* image was created by executing [this prompt](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/run/prompts/rows/waving.md) against the initial generated [character reference image](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/run/api-generation/base.png), which was created with [this prompt](https://github.com/simonw/pedalican-pet/blob/main/run/prompts/base-pet.md), which has this structure:

`Create one clean full-body reference sprite for Codex pet Pedalican.`

`Pet identity: A compact adorable baby pelican with a round cream-white body, soft coral-orange bill and feet, riding a tiny sky-blue bicycle [...]`

`Place a single centered pose on a perfectly flat pure magenta #FF00FF chroma-key background. Keep the full pet visible, compact, readable at 192x208, and easy to animate. [...]`

I've been looking out for example of ways to use image generation to create simple game-ready sprites, so I spent some time digging into this mechanism to see how it works.

The key implementation details are open source - these two skills in particular, both Apache 2.0 licensed:

And yes, GPT-5.6 Sol did come up with the name "Pedalican". I like it!

Tags: [ai](https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai), [prompt-engineering](https://simonwillison.net/tags/prompt-engineering), [generative-ai](https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai), [llms](https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms), [text-to-image](https://simonwillison.net/tags/text-to-image), [pelican-riding-a-bicycle](https://simonwillison.net/tags/pelican-riding-a-bicycle), [codex](https://simonwillison.net/tags/codex)