Children and family
Guide the character’s face, hair, favorite outfit, glasses, wheelchair, freckles, or another defining detail—with permission from the pictured person or a child’s parent or guardian.
Your photos can become the story world
Turn real people, pets, and places into storybook characters.
Use photos you already have to guide a recognizable child, beloved pet, family home, favorite place, toy, or keepsake through a coordinated children’s book. Toby develops the visual rules, keeps important details consistent, and finishes the cover, interior, revisions, and publishing files with you.
A final, proofread manuscript is required before standard-package production begins. A photo, idea, outline, or draft is enough to discuss fit and request a free sample direction.
PeopleFaces, clothing, hairstyles, relationships, and meaningful details.
PetsMarkings, ears, collars, expressions, habits, and personality.
PlacesHomes, rooms, gardens, landmarks, vehicles, and keepsakes.
Start with what you already love
Almost any meaningful photo can help build the book.
The strongest references are not always professional portraits. A clear phone photo can preserve the details that make a person, animal, place, or object feel unmistakably yours.
Pets with personality
Turn a dog, cat, horse, bird, rabbit, or other companion into a recurring hero while preserving markings, ear shape, collar, body type, and familiar expressions.
Homes and favorite places
Make the real porch, roofline, windows, garden, bedroom, neighborhood, family shop, farm, or vacation place part of the adventure.
Toys and comfort objects
A favorite stuffed animal, blanket, handmade doll, little red wagon, or well-loved toy can become the companion or magical object at the heart of the story.
Heirlooms and keepsakes
Recipes, jewelry, quilts, tools, letters, ornaments, and family treasures can carry a memory or tradition into the next generation.
A child’s own drawings
Use a child’s monster, spaceship, imaginary friend, map, or invented world as visual inspiration, then develop it into a coordinated storybook direction.
From reference to story
Keep what matters. Reimagine everything around it.
Each pair shows how recognizable visual clues can move from a source image into a completely new story scene.
A child becomes the explorer
Preserve the character, change the world.
The raincoat, backpack, boots, hair, face, and paper star carry into a magical forest scene. The result feels connected to the reference without simply tracing or copying the photograph.
A pet becomes the hero
Keep the markings. Add the mission.
The dog’s black saddle, tan face, white chest, forehead blaze, mismatched ears, teal collar, and brass tag remain recognizable while the setting becomes a windswept lighthouse adventure.
A house becomes the setting
Let the real place hold the magic.
The roofline, porch, pale-blue siding, brick chimney, windows, front door, and garden remain identifiable while blue-hour light and a welcoming glow turn the home into the beginning of an adventure.
About these demonstrations: the source photos, child, dog, and house are intentionally fictional AI-generated examples—not clients, documentary photos, or real properties. They were created to demonstrate the process without using anyone’s private family material.
A controlled process
Recognizable details become visual rules for the whole book.
Toby does not simply drop a photograph onto the page. He identifies the details that matter, develops one approved illustration direction, and checks those rules scene by scene.
- 01
Share references
Send copies or private links to photos you own or have permission to use, plus a note explaining what must stay recognizable.
- 02
Choose the anchors
Confirm the important face, markings, clothing, architecture, objects, colors, relationships, and story mood.
- 03
Approve the look
Review one coordinated storybook direction before the complete book is developed around it.
- 04
Build consistently
Toby directs, selects, edits, lays out, revises, and checks recurring details through the final cover and interior.
Permission and privacy
Use personal photos safely and deliberately.
You must own or have permission to use every submitted photo, name, likeness, logo, and other reference. For a child, obtain permission from the parent or legal guardian. Do not send private account credentials or sensitive personal information.
Reference photos are used to discuss and produce your project. They are not displayed publicly as portfolio material without separate permission. When possible, remove location metadata before sharing family photos. An exact photographic likeness is not promised unless it is specifically agreed in writing.
Read the privacy notice →What can stay recognizable?Face and hair cues, pet markings and collar, a house’s roofline and windows, a favorite object’s shape and color, and the relationships among them.What can change?The art style, weather, era, setting, action, scale, costumes, mood, and everything the story imagines around those anchors.
Practical questions
What authors usually want to know.
Can several photos guide one character?
Yes. A clear face view, full-body view, favorite outfit, and a few expressions can help define a stronger recurring character. Explain which photo is most accurate when details conflict.
Can my pet or house appear throughout the whole book?
Yes, when the recurring-character and setting plan fits the agreed scope. The most important markings or architectural details are established before the full book is built.
Does the $200 package include this?
Photo-guided characters and settings can be included in the standard $200 package when the manuscript, reference set, page plan, and illustration complexity fit the agreed scope. An unusually large cast, many separate locations, extensive likeness work, or an unusually art-intensive plan may require a separate quote.
Start with one photo you love.
Show Toby who—or what—belongs in the story.
No payment is required to request a free sample direction.