Shakthidass has worked as a painter, sketcher and cover artist for various child magazines, comics and newspapers throughout the last four decades. His works are created in a variety of media including oil, watercolor, and acrylic paintings as well as works in glass and pencil.

He was born at the village of Aratlakallu near Palakol in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. He is born in Gouda's family to Sri.Pastula Anjaneyula Gouda and Smt. Pastula Annapurna. His grandfather Sri. Pastula Sagaram was a Gandhian and then M.L.C.

He earned his first income of 74 Indian rupees when he painted a picture of Mary for a local church in his village; that picture is currently in the church of Italy.

Shakthidass moved to Chennai, formerly Madras, for employment in painting career and joined Ketha Cini Publicity studios in 1968 as a cinema publicity designer, preparing sketches for film sets. Later he joined M.V.S Publishers to sketch wrappers for their novels.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Shakthidass designed the covers of the children's magazine Chandamama, his illustrations featuring medieval Indian depictions covering kings, queens, and witches from ancient mythology and folklore.

He later did numerous wrappers, storyboard illustration, and sketches for various magazines and novels in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, English and Oriya languages. These included Bommarillu, Chandamama, Balamitra, Nandanam, Bujjayi, Balabharati, Kumkuma, Dinakaran, Vasuki , Rishi Petam, Rotary News, Vijaya Publications, Oriya News, Chinnari, and Kannada Chokkalingam.

In 2009, Shakthidass created a children's magazine called Chandrabala and a health magazine called Ayurveda sanjeevani. Chandrabala is written in Telugu and English. It is an illustrated magazine that covers themes including mythology, history, and culture.