Behind the Scenes – Howling Mountain Blues

This is a cover for Barking Rain Press.

For this cover, the third in the Crime Fighting Bluesmen series, we decided to model it after a Blues poster. For that, I stuck with more illustrated effects and textures, and stuck with a limited color scale, rather than the photo-realism I typically go for. I also played with juxtaposition, placing the monkey on top of the harmonica. In order to get the illustrated effect (which came from photos), I masked out the unnecessary portions of the photos, then used the threshold adjustment tool in Photoshop CS6, linked by a clipping mask to the photo, to make it black and white, then copied those layers and deleted out the extra color. I used the magic wand, without contiguous selected so I could make sure I could get all the excess black “paint” out.

This is the result:

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-143096134/stock-photo-man-sitting-on-stool-in-dark-room-playing-guitar.html?src=YXC4bJk9QY4AHuec3KmbMw-1-45
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-105812573/stock-photo-m-carbine-isolated-on-a-white-background.html?src=1XhlIKJOIrcMv9LG0tUqiA-1-57
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-128205749/stock-photo-harmonica-isolated-on-white-background.html?src=FkpC4FBCUaA1D1HeIEzIAg-1-1
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-150340748/stock-photo-black-howler-monkey.html?src=FeKPz55ibOJQ8jx5X6aLmg-1-32
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-41437732/stock-photo-the-painted-jungle.html?src=id&ws=1
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-99005135/stock-vector-vector-of-ancient-american-ornaments-on-white.html?src=id&ws=1
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-125309489/stock-photo-yellow-plastic-guitar-plectrum-isolated-on-white.html?src=DJCaLEQMiXkeNAk2HzB1nw-1-26&ws=1