Freelance Illustrator — Character Design for Photographic Compositing (Children’s Series, Full Right...

We are seeking a freelance illustrator for an ongoing monthly commission as part of a bilingual children’s snail mail subscription launching from Madrid. Each month, subscribers will receive an illustrated postcard that follows three anthropomorphic meerkat characters on adventures around the world as they pursue a stolen cookbook. The illustrations must be designed for clean compositing onto photographic backgrounds, requiring well-defined edges, precise linework, and minimal texture bleed. Characters should be expressive and detailed, especially in their faces, fur, and clothing, striking a balance between vivid character and integration with photographic scenes. The illustrator will collaborate with us to develop these characters from scratch, with all commercial copyright and character ownership remaining with us. We have filmmaking and photography backgrounds, and the expectation is for the artwork to fit seamlessly into cinematic, well-lit, and believable environments. The initial phase focuses on character development and establishing a memorable visual identity, with ongoing work involving two character illustrations per month. We are a small, passionate founding team and are looking for a creative partner interested in a long-term collaboration as the project grows.

Budget range:
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Examples:
The Olivia example is a solid example for clean lines while maintaining personality. Our characters are meerkats and we like the meerkats expressiveness in that image. The pig painting illustration is a good example for lighting and shadows.

About the client
We are a small, passionate team at the very beginning of something we believe in deeply. We are not a large agency or a big-budget publisher — we are founders who care enormously about the craft and are looking for the right creative partner, not just for this brief, but for the long term. Our backgrounds are in filmmaking and photography.