Photos and Characters

A clear, well-lit photo where your child's face is fully visible works best. Use one child per photo, facing the camera, without sunglasses, heavy shadows, or motion blur. The better we can see their face, the closer the illustrated character will match.

Temporarily, in private storage. This lets us create your characters after payment even if you close the browser. Unpurchased drafts expire after 48 hours; open payments and active generation keep their required photos until they are no longer needed. We keep the finished illustrations for reuse. See our Privacy Policy.

Use the portrait adjustment tool to describe a change, such as curlier hair or a different expression. Each adjustment costs $0.50 through a separate checkout. You can review the result before replacing the saved portrait. Existing books keep the portrait they were made with.

Each character can have portraits in several of our 10 art styles. Reuse a saved portrait in the same style without another upload. A missing style version is created with your next paid book. For a photo-created character, upload the original photo again for the new style. Your saved styles stay together in the character library.