How do you illustrate a children's book you already wrote?

If you already have the manuscript, the illustration work is four steps in a specific order: break the text into spreads, define each recurring character once as a reference image, fix one art style for the whole book, then illustrate each spread against those two fixed things. Doing them out of order is what produces a book that looks assembled rather than designed.

The order matters more than the tool.

Step 1: break the text into spreads, not pages

A picture book is read as double-page spreads. A 32-page book gives you about 13 of them once front matter is accounted for — see how many pages a picture book should be.

Print the manuscript and mark the divisions by hand. For each spread, note the one thing a reader should see. If a spread has two competing images in it, it is two spreads or the text needs cutting.

Pay attention to page turns. The turn is the only piece of timing you control, and it is where picture books get their rhythm — a question before it, the answer after. This is authorial judgement and no tool supplies it.

Step 2: define the cast before illustrating anything

Every character who appears more than once needs a reference image made first, before any page is illustrated.

Write a description that fixes identity rather than costume: species, age, proportions, face shape, hair or fur colour, eye colour, one distinguishing feature. Then generate or upload a reference and keep iterating until it is genuinely right — you will look at this image on every page.

This step is what prevents character drift. Illustrating page one before the cast exists means either restarting or living with a hero whose face changes.

Secondary characters count. A grandmother appearing on three spreads needs a reference just as much as the protagonist.

Step 3: choose one art style and apply it everywhere

Decide the look once, at book level, and apply it to the cast references, every interior spread and the cover.

Be specific about medium and treatment: "loose watercolour with visible paper grain and soft edges, warm muted palette, no outlines" steers far better than "children's book style", which lands you in the default glossy look every AI book shares.

The style must be set before the character references, because the references are illustrations too and they establish the look everything else inherits.

Step 4: illustrate each spread against the fixed elements

Now each spread is a small brief: which characters are present, what is happening, where. The style and the identities are already settled, so the only variable is the scene.

Two practical notes:

Composition needs to leave room for text. Decide early whether the text sits in the art or is typeset over it. If typeset, plan a quiet area on each spread for it — sky, a wall, open ground. Retrofitting text onto a busy composition is the most common layout failure.

Do not accept the first result out of habit. Regeneration is cheap. The gap between an acceptable book and a good one is largely the willingness to redo a weak spread.

Step 5: check before you print

Read the whole book looking at nothing but the main character. Drift is hardest to see on pages you have looked at most, so a deliberate identity-only pass catches what casual review misses. An automated consistency check does this systematically and flags the pages worth another look.

Then check resolution. Generated art is often around 117 DPI at print size, well under the 300 DPI print requires — see trim sizes and resolution.

Then order a proof copy.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import a manuscript, or must I generate the story? Import it. Bringing your own text is the more common path for authors who already write, and it is also the strongest position for copyright, since the text is unambiguously human-authored.

How long does illustrating a 32-page book take? A first book is realistically a few sessions: an hour or two settling the cast and style, then the spreads. The cast and style work is front-loaded and reusable across a series.

What if my manuscript is too long? Cut. Picture books run 500–1,000 words. Text that will not fit in 13 spreads is usually a chapter book, and forcing it into a picture book weakens both.

Should I write the text into the illustrations or over them? Over them, as real typography, for anything longer than a few words. Image models still misspell text, and a misspelling baked into artwork can only be fixed by regenerating the whole image.