Certain embodiments involve generating one or more of appearance guide and a positional guide and using one or more of the guides to synthesize a stylized image or animation. For example, a system obtains data indicating a target image and a style exemplar image. The system generates an appearance guide, a positional guide, or both from the target image and the style exemplar image. The system uses one or more of the guides to transfer a texture or style from the style exemplar image to the target image.