Codex Desktop Custom Pet: Generate a Bicycle Pelican with GPT-5.6 Sol and gpt-image-2

Simon Willison recently activated a Clippy-like pet in Codex Desktop and found he could create custom ones. He designed Petalican, a cute pelican riding a blue bicycle. The process used GPT-5.6 Sol xhigh to orchestrate multiple gpt-image-2 calls, generating sprite assets. He published detailed notes and a GitHub repo with all generated images, sprite sheets, and GIFs (e.g., waving.gif). The GIFs were compiled from single frames generated by gpt-image-2, prompted to output 192x208 pixels with a magenta #FF00FF chroma key background. Relevant code: hatch-pet (openai/skills) and imagegen (openai/codex), both Apache 2.0. For developers, this shows how LLMs can coordinate multiple image-gen calls to auto-produce structured sprite sheets and frame animations without manual drawing.