Illustrator for Children's Storybook

TITLE Children's Book Illustrator — 24 Background Recreations (Digital Painting Welcome; No AI) PROJECT We are commissioning 24 artist-drawn background illustrations for a personalized children's book. Digital painting is welcome, including drawing and painting by hand with a stylus in Photoshop, Procreate, or a similar application. Traditional painting is also acceptable and encouraged, but physical paintings are not required. The important requirement is that a human artist draws and paints the artwork, rather than generating it with AI. We will supply approved reference images. We need faithful, near-identical recreations of the BACKGROUNDS ONLY, not a new visual interpretation. Match the composition, object placement, proportions, perspective, palette, lighting, and painterly finish as closely as possible. Small natural differences in brushwork are expected; major redesigns are not. Remove the main character, other people, and page text unless an exception is explicitly marked. Preserve scenery, playground equipment, furniture, and decorative background details, including framed wall art. Draw the background naturally where it is currently hidden behind characters or text. Preserve open areas for later text and character placement. We will disclose the origin of the references and confirm reproduction permissions before contracting. Please give a preliminary estimate from the samples, then confirm a fixed quote after reviewing all 24 references and the production specifications. STYLE Textured, gouache-style children's-book illustration with a warm, whimsical, vintage-storybook / folk-art feel. Rounded, simplified forms; matte-looking surfaces; brush and paper-like texture; soft shading; and gently exaggerated perspective. Daytime scenes: golden yellow, ochre, olive green, and burnt orange. Nighttime scenes: deep indigo and muted blue-purple, sometimes with warm amber light. This describes the desired appearance, not a requirement to use physical gouache. HUMAN-CREATED WORKFLOW / NO GENERATIVE AI Please create the illustrations through your own drawing and painting. Conventional non-generative brushes, appropriately licensed non-AI textures, layers, masks, selections, transformations, and color adjustments are acceptable. Do not use text-to-image or image-to-image generation, generative fill or expansion, AI-generated scene elements or textures, AI upscaling, or AI-generated artwork painted over or retouched and presented as artist-created work. Use the supplied references as guides; do not simply erase the characters from the supplied flattened images, apply a painterly filter, or make minor edits and deliver them as new illustrations. Any reference-tracing method should be disclosed and agreed before work begins. Please identify who will actually create the artwork. Studios and teams may apply, but disclose the proposed artist(s), their roles, and how the style will stay consistent. Do not change or subcontract the approved artist/team without agreement. DELIVERABLES 1. Twenty-four clean, text-free, character-free background illustrations in high-resolution PNG or TIFF format. Create them at the agreed final print dimensions and bleed, targeting at least 300 pixels per inch without AI upscaling. Color specifications and file naming will be agreed in advance. 2. For digital work, the editable layered source files in an agreed format, such as PSD or the application's native format. Include actual working layers, not only a flattened image placed into a source file. Agree any separate foreground elements needed for later character compositing before work begins. For traditional work, quote high-resolution digitization; artificial layers are not required. 3. Four to six authentic photographs documenting work on a few of the commissioned backgrounds. For digital work, these can show the artist drawing on a tablet or pen display, an in-progress scene at the workspace, and the completed scene on screen. Include at least one photograph of the artist's hand actively drawing. Faces are not required. Clear, well-lit smartphone photographs are fine; professional studio photography is not required. These must show the actual project, not unrelated work, stock photography, or fabricated process scenes. 4. Progress previews at sketch, color-blocking, and finished stages for the two pilot backgrounds. Screenshots are acceptable for these progress previews, but do not replace the agreed marketing photographs unless we approve that substitution. Optional addition: Please state whether you can include a time-lapse or screen recording showing the development of one or two backgrounds, and quote any extra cost separately. Do not record unrelated client information or private material. Digital delivery is required. There is no requirement to create or ship physical originals. An artist proposing traditional painting should identify any scanning or shipping charges separately; shipping is optional. PAID PILOT AND APPROVALS Please quote a paid two-background pilot: one sunny park scene and one nighttime bedroom scene. If approved, these count toward the 24 backgrounds; they are not additional pages. Show the pilot price within the full-project total. We will approve composition/sketch and color direction before final rendering, then proceed in agreed batches. Please quote for two rounds of sketch-stage feedback and one minor final-correction round, and explain what would count as additional work. No unpaid custom test is requested. CHARACTERS AND FUTURE WORK We will add characters and text separately using software to create personalized editions. This commission covers backgrounds only. We will not imply that you created character artwork you did not make. Please confirm you are comfortable with the disclosed workflow. A later project may involve artist-created character variants in the same style. That would be separately scoped and paid; it is not included or guaranteed here. PUBLISHING RIGHTS, PROCESS MEDIA, AND CREDIT Please base your quote on exclusive, worldwide, perpetual publishing rights for these backgrounds in this book and its unlimited personalized and translated editions, in print and digital formats, plus associated marketing. We need permission to reproduce, resize/crop, and composite separately produced characters and text with the backgrounds, and to provide files to our production and printing partners for these purposes. Identify any restrictions or extra fees. Broader uses or a copyright assignment can be discussed separately. We also require agreed nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual permission to use the delivered process photographs on our website, product pages, social media, email campaigns, paid advertisements, and printed marketing for this project, including reasonable cropping and captions. Obtain the relevant photographer permissions and consent for identifiable people shown. Hands-only photographs are acceptable. Any publicly usable screenshots or videos should be separately identified and included in the same agreed permission. Proposed book credit: "Background illustrations by [Artist Name or Studio Name]." Please state whether credit is required, preferred, optional, or declined, and identify any separate process-photo credit requirements. Credit and marketing permissions will be agreed separately in writing, subject to applicable rights. This scope does not grant permission to train or fine-tune AI models on your artwork or process media. Any such use would require a separate express agreement. PLEASE INCLUDE IN YOUR APPLICATION - Three to five relevant examples of your own illustrations, especially painterly children's-book environments with daytime and nighttime lighting, and any existing process examples. - Who would create the work, the software or medium used, and how you would match the references. - A fixed total for 24 backgrounds, final exports, the agreed source files, and 4–6 process photographs, including the stated publishing and marketing permissions. Show the two-background pilot price and itemize extras, taxes, or applicable fees. - Your availability, proposed schedule, and revision terms. - Written confirmation that your illustration workflow will not use generative AI, and that you accept the disclosed character workflow and agreed process-documentation requirements. - Your credit and privacy preferences.