For publishers, agencies & production companies
Book illustration that hits your print date
Children's, picture and educational book illustration for publishing lists — from a single cover to a multi-title series with a shared style bible. Fourteen years, 500+ projects, print-ready files delivered to your production spec.
- Fixed quote in 1 business day
- CMYK, 300dpi, bleed, layered
- Series-consistent style bibles
14+
Years illustrating
500+
Projects delivered
200+
Clients served
12+
Countries
Trusted on national publishing programmes
Senior Illustrator at the National Book Trust, India — educational titles produced to government publishing specification.
The problem
Commissioning illustration is a production risk, not a design decision
The artwork is rarely the hard part. Keeping a title on schedule, on-style and on-spec is — and that is where most illustration commissions go wrong.
Illustrators who miss the print slot
A slipped delivery does not cost you a week — it costs you a printing slot, a catalogue date and a sales conference. Most freelance illustrators have never had to hit one.
Style that drifts across a series
Book three stops looking like book one. Character proportions wander, palettes shift, and the shelf presence you paid to build quietly comes apart.
Files your printer sends back
RGB artwork, no bleed, 72dpi exports, flattened layers you cannot correct. Fixing a supplier's files in-house is a hidden cost nobody quotes for.
Managing an artist instead of a title
Chasing revisions, translating editorial notes into visual direction, explaining spreads and gutters. That is your commissioning editor's week, gone.
Services
Everything a title needs, from one studio
Commission a single cover or the complete interior programme. The same person handles both, so nothing needs re-explaining.
Children's & picture book illustration
Full-colour spreads, character-led narrative art, and covers for trade and independent lists. Age-appropriate from board book through middle grade.
Educational & textbook illustration
Diagrams, process art, concept visuals and scene illustration for curriculum, workbooks and EdTech — accurate first, attractive second.
Character design & visual development
Turnarounds, expression sheets and style bibles that let a series stay consistent across titles, formats and, if needed, a second illustrator.
Cover illustration
Covers designed to work at thumbnail on a retailer grid and at full size on a shelf — with spine and back-cover artwork supplied to your template.
Storyboarding & sequential art
Page-turn planning, spread pacing and shot-by-shot boards. Fourteen years of animation storyboarding applied to how a book actually reads.
Spot illustration & print-ready artwork
Chapter openers, marginalia and icon sets — delivered CMYK, at bleed, layered, and to whatever spec your production team sends.
Illustration process
Six stages, each with a sign-off gate
Every stage ends in a written approval. Nothing expensive starts before something cheap has been agreed — which is why revisions stay inside the quote.
01
Brief & quote
You send the manuscript or a summary. We come back within one business day with a fixed quote, a schedule mapped to your print date, and what we need from you.
02
Style exploration
Two or three visual directions as sample art from your actual text — not a mood board. You pick one before any production begins.
03
Character & palette lock
Turnarounds, expressions and a colour script signed off in writing. This is the gate that stops style drift in book two.
04
Roughs across the full book
Every spread laid out in rough at once, so pacing and page turns are reviewed as a book rather than as a stack of separate pictures.
05
Final artwork
Production in agreed batches with scheduled review points. Two rounds of revision per illustration are included at each stage.
06
Print-ready handoff
CMYK at 300dpi with bleed and trim marks, layered source files, and an RGB set for digital editions. Delivered to your naming convention.
Portfolio
Recent narrative and sequential work
Published book work is often under NDA until release. Ask for the publisher portfolio and we will send titles relevant to your list — including work in your age band and format.
Storyboarding · Sequential art · Animation
Braintegration — Better State of Mind
A graphite visual language carried intact from boards to final frames. The same discipline that keeps a book series looking like one book series.
Publisher portfolio
Ask for work matched to your list
Tell us the age band, format and style you are commissioning for and we will send the closest relevant samples — not a generic reel.
Request the publisher portfolioIndustry credibility
Fourteen years inside publishing and animation
Not a freelancer who takes book work. A career built in national publishing, international animation and education at scale.
National Book Trust, India
Senior Illustrator
Illustrated educational publications for India's national publishing body — print runs reaching millions of readers, produced to government publishing specification.
Prana Studios / Disney
Animation production
Frame-by-frame storytelling on international animation productions. Where the sequential-art discipline behind our page-turn planning comes from.
ALLEN NExT & EdTech
Creative Lead
Led visual design for education platforms at scale — interactive illustration, module graphics and course visuals under a fixed curriculum brief.
Working with publishers and agencies across 12+ countries. Comfortable with UK, US, EU and Indian production conventions, co-edition requirements, and IST/GMT/EST review calls.
Why RP Sketches
Illustration plus production expertise
Plenty of people can draw a good page. Far fewer can hand your printer a file that needs nothing doing to it.
Get a quoteIllustration, storytelling and production in one head
Most studios give you an artist. You also need someone who understands page turns, gutters, bleed, trim and how a printer will actually reproduce a colour. That combination is the whole reason this studio exists.
A schedule built backwards from your print date
We quote against your production calendar, not ours, and flag the point at which a late manuscript starts costing you the slot. You will know about a risk weeks before it becomes one.
One point of contact
You brief a person, not a queue. Rajat reads every brief, quotes it, draws it, and answers your emails. Nothing gets lost in a handoff because there are no handoffs.
Rights and files handled properly
Clear licensing terms agreed in the quote — territory, term, formats, reprints. Layered source files transfer on final payment so your next edition is never held hostage.
Project types
What we are usually commissioned for
If your project is not on this list, it is still worth asking — most of these started as something nobody had asked for before.
- Single picture book, 24–32 pages
- Board books and early readers
- Chapter books with spot illustration
- Multi-title series with a shared style bible
- Educational workbooks and textbook programmes
- Curriculum and EdTech visual libraries
- Cover-only commissions and rebrands of a backlist
- Character design packages for licensing
- Storyboards and animatics for book-to-screen
- Co-edition artwork for international rights
- Activity, puzzle and non-fiction titles
- Rush work to rescue a slipped print slot
FAQ
What publishers ask before commissioning
What does book illustration cost?+
Quotes are per illustration and per stage rather than a day rate, so you can approve a fixed number internally. The variables are complexity (spot art versus full-bleed spread), colour, the number of characters, and how much visual development the series needs up front. Send a page count and a sample of the text and you will have a fixed quote within one business day.
How long does a picture book take?+
A standard 24–32 page picture book runs 8–12 weeks from signed brief to print-ready files, assuming final text is available at the roughs stage. Educational programmes with a large spot-illustration count often move faster per image but need longer for the initial style and template work. We quote against your print date and tell you the latest date we can receive final text without risking it.
Can you match the style of an existing series?+
Yes — this is a large part of what we do for publishers extending a backlist. We work from the existing titles to rebuild the style as a documented bible (line weight, palette, character construction, page furniture) so the new books sit correctly on the shelf beside the old ones. That bible also means a future title is not dependent on any one illustrator.
Do you work to our production specification?+
Yes. Send the printer's spec sheet and templates with the brief. Final artwork is delivered CMYK at 300dpi with bleed and trim marks, layered source files, and a separate RGB set for digital editions — named to your convention. If your production team has a preferred delivery format we will use it rather than ours.
Who owns the artwork and the rights?+
Licensing is agreed in writing in the quote — territory, term, formats, print run and reprint terms are all explicit before work starts. Full transfer of rights and layered source files is available and is priced into the quote rather than negotiated afterwards. Files transfer on final payment.
How many revisions are included?+
Two rounds per illustration at each stage — roughs, line, and colour. Because each stage is signed off before the next begins, revisions almost always land at the cheap end of the process rather than on finished art. Changes that follow a signed-off stage are quoted separately, and you are told before any work on them starts.
Do you sign NDAs and handle unpublished manuscripts?+
Routinely. Manuscripts are treated as confidential by default: never shared, never published as portfolio samples without written permission, and never used as training material. We will sign your NDA or supply ours before you send anything.
Can you take on a project where the previous illustrator dropped out?+
Yes, and it is worth asking early rather than late. Send what exists — completed art, the style so far, and the remaining schedule — and we will tell you honestly whether the date is still reachable and what it would take. If it is not, you will hear that on the first call rather than six weeks in.
Which countries do you work with?+
Publishers and agencies across 12+ countries, including the UK, US, EU, Australia and India. Review calls are scheduled in your timezone, and we are used to UK, US and Indian production conventions as well as co-edition requirements for international rights.
What do you need to give us a quote?+
At minimum: the project type, roughly how many illustrations, and your print or delivery date. Ideally also the manuscript or a summary, the age band, the format, and any reference art or existing titles you want the style to sit alongside. Everything else can be settled on a 20-minute call.
Get a quote
Tell us about the title
The more you can share, the more precise the quote. If you only know the page count and the print date, that is enough to start.
Fixed quote, not a range
Priced per illustration and per stage, so you can approve a budget internally.
A schedule against your print date
Including the latest date we can receive final text without risking the slot.
Confidential
Manuscripts are never shared, published as samples, or used to train anything.
Prefer to talk first?
A 20-minute call is often faster than a form for a complex list or a series.
Have a title that needs illustrating?
Send the brief and you will have a fixed quote and a schedule within one business day. No retainer, no discovery fee, no obligation.