Make Adorable Pixar-Style Pet Stickers with Google Gemini

Something I’ve been having a lot of fun with recently is using Google’s Gemini to generate images of my pets in the style of Disney Pixar characters. These then become awesome images to share, but I like using them for stickers in iMessage.

So all we need to do is open up the Gemini app, and then we can use the built-in image editor called Nano Banana to generate some images using AI. To begin with, I’m going to add some photos of my cat, Pudding. I’m just going to select a bunch of photos here. We’ve got several of them, I think. And then those pictures will get uploaded into Gemini, ready to use in our prompt.

So speaking of that prompt, these are the instructions that we’re going to give the tool to make sure we get the result we want. I’m going to ask it to generate a 3D animated character in the style of a Disney Pixar animal. We’re going to use the photos, make sure it looks friendly, and put it in a plain white space – a white photo studio, I guess – so we can remove the background later on.

The final thing to do before we press send is to make sure we’re using the best AI tool we can. I’m going to tap on here and make sure Thinking is selected. At the time of making this video, this is the most accurate way of creating images, and it uses Google’s Nano Banana technology.

Now, at this point, we can send our message just like you would in a normal chat. Then we wait about 30 seconds or so while it creates the image. I’ll jump ahead a little bit. And there we go. You can now see this adorable animated version of Pudding in that white photo studio we asked for.

Now, this has reached the limit of the free images I can create. With Nano Banana, you get two high-quality images per day. I’ve already made one, so this is my second one. But if you pay, you can create far more. That’s all I need though, because now I can save this into the Photos app on my iPhone just like this.

So now that the image is saved, it’s time to turn it into a sticker to send in Messages. I’ll open up the Messages app and start a new conversation with myself. I’m going to tap the plus button on the left-hand side, find Stickers, and then tap the add button to create a new sticker.

At this point, I can find that photo in my photo library, tap on it to select it, and it will turn it into a sticker by removing the white background. When I press the plus button, it’s as simple as that.

I can now drag and drop it onto the message thread, or tap on it to send it straight away. I can also edit the sticker and give it a 3D effect, a bubbly effect, or a holographic style. I quite like the white outline myself, so I’ll choose that and save it.

And just like that, we’ve turned some pet photos into an animated character using Google Gemini and sent it as a sticker in Messages. It makes your phone feel far more personal and creative.

Give it a try and let me know in the comments how you get on. I’ll see you next time for another iPhone QuickTip.