Series drift is usually blamed on the model, the way a dull season at court is blamed on the weather. Examine the commissions instead. The muse is described from memory at every sitting, and memory edits as it goes: “black hair with a diadem” at the first sitting becomes “dark hair, elegantly styled” by the fifth, and the audience watches a courteous stranger take over the presentation. The repair is a matter of record. Write the lady down once, seal the entry, and paste it — never retype it — at the head of every commission that follows.
Five entries, in order
A working entry holds five things, always in the same sequence. Age — a number, always 25 or over. Hair — colour, length, and the one style she is known by. Build — two or three words, and no more. Face — one or two details that endure. Seal — the gold chain, the mole, the ring that survives any crop and any gown. Everything beyond these five is a scene line: the dress, the chamber, the light, the pose. Scene lines are made to change at every sitting. Entries under seal are not.
Two habits keep the record sound. Entries are stated plainly and positively — “long glossy black hair worn straight with a centre part, held by a thin gold diadem band” survives generation intact, while “beautiful hair” is re-interpreted at every attempt, by every model, in every mood. And the entry is versioned. When the muse is deliberately changed — a new style, a new seal — the new text is saved as version two, dated, with version one kept beneath it, so an earlier set can still be re-commissioned exactly as it was first presented.
Working from the record
Production then proceeds in good order. Pair the sealed entry with scene lines that share one chamber and one light, and commission the set at the standard model’s 6-credit price. Keep the finest third. Spend on amendments, presentations and raising only after judgement has been passed. When a portrait returns off character, the cause is almost always visible in the brief itself: a scene line contradicted an entry, or an entry was sealed too vaguely to hold. Both are corrected on paper, in the record — not by hunting through settings.
What the seal cannot do
It cannot hold a lady who was never decided. If the five entries are adjectives — lovely, striking, unforgettable — no ceremony will keep her, because there is no her to keep. Decide her on paper first. The sealed description is not where the imagination happens. It is where the imagination is kept, under seal, between sittings.