How to Restyle a Video with AI: Anime, Cartoon, Film & More

To restyle a video with AI, use a video-to-video model as a style converter: attach the clip as a reference, describe the target look by its visual traits (line work, shading, color, texture), and tell the model to keep the people, motion, camera, and timing the same. The model redraws the whole clip in the new style while following the original performance, whether that style is anime, a cartoon, a comic, watercolor, or a vintage film look. In getimg.ai, attach the video as a reference in Create video, write the style prompt, and generate a new version.

How AI Video Restyling Works

AI video style transfer used to mean running an image filter on each still of a video separately, which produced the familiar flicker: lines and colors jumping around because every image was styled on its own. Video-to-video models avoid that by generating the clip as a whole. The source video supplies the motion, timing, camera, and composition; the prompt supplies the look; and the model produces a new clip in which the style is consistent from start to end.

Restyling is one of the most forgiving AI video edits for a simple reason: the whole clip changes. With a local edit like removing an object, the eye can catch the boundary between edited and unedited areas. With a full restyle there is no boundary, so small differences from the source read as artistic interpretation rather than errors. That makes it a good first edit to try if you are new to AI video editing.

This is also why restyling is better described as a redraw than a filter. A cartoon or anime version of your clip is a new piece of animation that follows your footage, not your footage with an effect applied on top.

How to Restyle a Video in getimg.ai

1. Trim the clip to the shot you need. Each video can be up to 15 seconds long, or 30 seconds on Seedance 2.5, so a longer video is restyled in segments.
2. Attach the clip you want to restyle as a video reference: click it in your gallery to open it in full view with the clip already attached, or upload it with the Reference button in the Create video prompt box.
3. Write a style prompt that describes the look in concrete traits, followed by a keep list (examples below).
4. Optionally attach a style image as an image reference, such as an illustration or a still you made earlier in the look you want.
5. Choose Seedance 2.5, MiniMax H3, MiniMax H3 Max, or Wan 3.0, match the aspect ratio to the source, and generate 2 to 4 variations.
6. Pick the variation with the most stable faces and line work, and keep its prompt for the rest of your clips.

How to Describe a Style

The single most useful habit is to describe a style by what you can see, not by a label. "Anime" means different things to different models. "Clean thin black outlines, flat cel shading with one shadow tone, large expressive eyes, soft pastel sky" gives the model the same instructions an art director would.

It also keeps you clear of a common trap: naming a specific studio, show, or living artist. Describing traits gets you the look you want and keeps the result your own.

Ask for the whole scene to be redrawn, not only the people: "restyle the whole scene, including the street and the sky, as…". Without it, a model can draw the person in the new style and leave the background looking like a photo.

Useful trait vocabulary:

• Line: thin clean outlines, thick ink outlines, sketchy pencil lines, no outlines.
• Shading: flat cel shading, soft gradient shading, cross-hatching, halftone dots, painterly.
• Color: pastel, saturated primaries, muted earth tones, limited three-color palette.
• Texture: paper grain, visible brush strokes, cut paper edges, film grain.
• Motion feel: smooth, or slightly stepped like hand-drawn animation.

Style Prompts That Work

Each style prompt below follows the same pattern: the style as visual traits, then the keep list.

A full prompt, written out:

Edit the reference video: restyle the whole scene as 2D anime with clean thin outlines, flat cel shading, expressive eyes, and a soft painted evening sky. Keep the two friends, their movements, the camera move, and the timing the same.

The film look in the table is not drawn, but it uses the same mechanism and the same prompt shape: any look you can describe, from an AI video filter style to a full animated redraw, is a restyle.

What Footage Restyles Best

Not every clip restyles well. The model has to decide which shapes become characters and which become background, and clear footage makes that easy.

Clear silhouettes

A person against a simple background, in clothing that contrasts with the scene, restyles more cleanly than someone in a busy crowd.

Expressive, readable motion

Walking, dancing, jumping, gesturing, and turning toward the camera all read well in a drawn style. Tiny movements (a slight eye glance, typing on a phone) can get lost in a simplified look.

Medium shots over extreme wides

When a person is very small in the shot, the model has fewer details to keep their identity consistent.

Good light

Dark, noisy footage gives the model less to read, and noise can turn into unwanted texture in the style.

Short clips

Each attached file can be up to 15 seconds, or 30 seconds on Seedance 2.5, and shorter clips are easier to keep consistent. For a longer piece, cut it into shots and restyle each one.

Keeping One Style Across a Series of Clips

A single restyled clip is a nice post. A series in one recognizable style is a format. Keeping several clips consistent takes a little setup.

Lock the wording

Once a prompt works, reuse its style sentence word for word on every clip and change only the keep list.

Add a style image

Take a still from your best result, or an illustration in the look you want, and attach it as an image reference on the next clips, with "match the style of the reference image." This anchors the palette and line weight better than words alone.

Use the same model

Each model interprets a style slightly differently, so switching mid-series is the easiest way to get a mismatch.

Plan the characters

If the same person appears in several clips, describe them the same way each time ("a woman with short red hair in a yellow raincoat") so the model draws a consistent character. For stills to go alongside an anime series, such as thumbnails or posters in the same look, the anime AI art generator makes matching images.

Common Problems and Fixes

Where Restyled Videos Get Used

Creators use restyles to turn real-life moments into recurring social formats: a weekly clip as a comic, a travel series in watercolor, a skit in anime. Brands use them to make a live-action ad and an animated cut from the same shoot, which is useful when one platform favors one look over another. Musicians use them for lyric and visualizer videos built from simple performance footage. Educators use cartoon styles to make explainer clips feel lighter without hiring an animator.

In getimg.ai, every styled version is saved next to the original, so you can test three looks on one clip before choosing a direction for a series. You can turn a video into anime for character-driven clips, or turn a video into a cartoon for comic, watercolor, and sketch looks. Commercial use of the styled clips is allowed, subject to our terms and applicable third-party rights; describing styles by their traits rather than naming studios or characters keeps the result yours to use.

The Bottom Line

Restyling a video with AI redraws the whole clip in a new look while following the original motion, which makes it one of the most forgiving edits to start with. Describe the style by visible traits rather than labels, ask for the whole scene to be redrawn, and keep the people and their movements in the keep list. For a series, lock the wording, add a style image, and stay on one model so every clip matches.

Restyle a video in Create video