Category Archives: Book Covers

May 20, 2016 · 2:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – Sword of the Quest

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted to match the covers of the previous books, Dragon Sword and Sword of Doom. The font and border placement remained the same, as did the leather textured background. The difference was the scene on the front. We tried a couple cover options before we came to this particular setup. (As a note, if you’re the cover artist working on multiple books in a series, and you have all the art forms for each of those books, make sure you don’t accidentally blend ideas from each form.)

Since there’s a lot going on in this cover, the lighting played an important role in balancing the cover. I made sure to have the main character fully lit, and thus in the spotlight. Next up was the woman, but I put her in slight shadow. The reader’s gaze falls first on the man, then her, then finally on the cloaked shadow in the background. The cloaked figure I shadowed the most. Partially because the figure is supposed to be mysterious, but also so the figure doesn’t attract the initial attention from the main character. Then, once all the pieces were in place, I added the specific lighting from the emerald, that way the whole scene fell together.

For the runes on the altar, I drew them in one color on a separate layer and then tinkered with the “bevel and emboss” special effect until they looked like they were part of the stone.

This is the result:

Behind the Scenes - Sword of the Quest - Book Cover

Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club (Stock site sold to Adobe Stock, individual links no longer work): katana // wolf // woman’s head / man’s arm / man’s legs / man’s torso
Stock images from Dreamstime:
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-angkor-wat-temple-inside-corridor-walls-cambodia-image26822490 – temple

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-leather-clad-warrior-image265556 – leather tunic

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-ancient-roman-stone-pedestal-image12983352 – stone pedestal

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-emerald-isolated-image16275280 – emerald

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-dangerous-vampire-catacombs-full-skulls-bones-horror-fantasy-image64756682 – cloaked figure

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Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover art, cover design, covers, designing a book cover, fantasy, fantasy art, Melange Books, photographic illustration, Richard Dawes, scenes on covers, series of book covers, Stephanie Flint, Sword of the Quest, Valka the Wolf Slayer Saga, Working with books in a series

May 9, 2016 · 9:57 pm

Behind the Scenes – Red Sun Over Mexico

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover we wanted to stick with the same theme as the first book in the series, Red Sun Over Panama. I kept most of the same imagery, including quite a bit of the retouching I’d already done, and inserted an image symbolic of Mexico.

To figure out which image to use, I emailed the author about symbolism relevant in the book. Other than the Japanese Red Sun, pulled from the first cover to give this a historical touch, he mentioned the temples as a landmark. So that’s what we went with.

The publisher repurchased a licence for each of the images we used a second time, as well as picked up the new image we needed.

Keeping with the first cover, I hid part of the title behind the landmark. In this one, more of the title is hid than in the first, but I was careful to make sure that the title was still legible.

This is the end result:

SBibb - Red Sun Over Mexico - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime and Dollar Photo Club.

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Tagged as book cover art, book cover design, book covers, H. Paul Doucette, historical novels, Melange Books, photographic illustration, Red Sun Over Mexico, Red Sun Over Panama, SBibb, sequels, Stephanie Flint

April 22, 2016 · 7:37 pm

Behind the Scenes – The Rovers

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author already had an idea of what image he wanted used for both the front and back. However, the stock image we looked at initially was marked “editorial only,” so that one wasn’t available. However, we did find a similar photograph on the Library of Congress website that didn’t have any known restrictions, in part due to its age.

So, though it was black and white, I retouched the image and filled it in with color, along with sharpening the picture. (Ironically, while I retouched the back cover image as well, I removed the color from that one). We also found a free font that resembled the baseball logo of the referenced team. This was the result:

Book Cover - The Rovers

I changed the border a bit for the front and back of the print covers, due to the trim lines.

Book Cover - The Rovers - Print Edition

Back of Book Cover - The Rovers

Primary stock images from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/91725980

We had a modern-day image we considered using, but couldn’t due to licencing restrictions.

Post Card Border from The Dollar Photo Club (Now Closed)

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-quinn-abbey-image18602883 – Churchyard

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as black and white pictures to color, book cover art, book covers, cover design, Paul Ferrante, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, retouching an old photograph, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, The Rovers

March 25, 2016 · 2:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – On A Midnight Clear

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author wanted something that showed a cabin in a snowy region and kept with the dark mood of the story. They had already found an image that they felt worked well, so I was able to find a similar one from the stock site we normally use in order to create the cover.

My first attempt at a proof for this cover included silhouettes of the characters, but it didn’t convey the right mood. So I went a more simple route, using the mysterious, dark purple color as the base of the cover, with a narrow focus on the cabin in question. I also changed my initial font to something a bit more bold.

This is the result:

Book Cover - On A Midnight Clear

Back of Book Cover - On A Midnight Clear

Stock image from Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/70616736 – cabin

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Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover art, designing a book cover, designing a novel cover, ebook covers, Henry Hoffman, Melange Books, mysterious book covers, mystery, On A Midnight Clear, Stephanie Flint, thriller

March 16, 2016 · 6:23 pm

Behind the Scenes – In the Camp

This is a cover for Melange Books‘ young adult imprint. For this cover, the author wanted a symbol rather than a scene, and in their art form they mentioned that their story revolves around elves using nature to reclaim the modern human cities after a devastating war. Based on that, and since the author said that there was a phone that played a large role in the story, I tinkered with the idea of having an old, cracked phone on the cover.

Vines partially cover the phone (showing nature beginning to take over again), and I added the “reflection” in the phone’s screen to show more of the setting (a swampy area). To give the cover a dystopian feel, I used a couple grungy concrete textures in addition to the concrete background. For the text, I tried a bolder font to keep with the genre, and added a more “computery” text to the phone for the series title.

This is the result:

Book Cover - In the Camp

SBibb - ItCBackcoverBlog
Stock images from Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/86638759 – concrete wall
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/87991955 – ivy
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/72301540 – cracked phone
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/95588080 – Night Sky
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/75505794 – abandoned warehouse
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/69503655 – swamp
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/84770412 – concrete grunge texture

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Filed under Book Covers, Uncategorized

Tagged as book cover art, book cover design, cover art, cover design, designing a book cover, In the Camp, Margeaux Nall, photographic manipulation, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, YA dystopian, young adult book covers

January 20, 2016 · 6:59 pm

Behind the Scenes – A Wolf Slayer Saga: Sword of Doom

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we based the style on the first book, Dragon Sword (See the cover of the first book here). The wolf at the top of the cover is the same, as is the placement of the text, and the border on the right side of the book. We also used the same model, though I used two separate images to get the right mood for the cover. I also did a bit of work with the puppet warp and liquefy tools in Photoshop CS6 to get the right build for the character (You can see the original photos in the link of stock images below).

This is the result:

SBibb - Sword of Doom Back of Book Cover
Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club:

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Tagged as book cover, cover art, cover design, designing a book cover, epic fantasy, fantasy, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, Richard Dawes, series design, Stephanie Flint, stock images, Sword of Doom, The Wolf Slayer Saga, using multiple stock images in a cover

January 13, 2016 · 8:04 pm

Thoughts on Everything – A Cover Contest, A Giveaway, And A Bit of Twitter Fun

Today I’ve got a few various bits of news to share, from a fun cover contest, a Goodreads giveaway for Magic’s Stealing, and a bit of fun that can be had on Twitter. 🙂

Starting off…

Author Shout Cover Wars Contest

Last week, Paul Ferrante’s book, The Curse of the Fairfield Witch (which I did the book cover for), won the Author Shout Cover Wars contest and is currently this week’s Book of the Week.

Cover Wars is a fun contest that pits book covers head-to-head to see which can get the most votes for the week. It’s mostly for fun, but it’s neat to see all the options, and it hopefully affords authors a bit more visibility for their books.

Speaking of visibility…

Magic’s Stealing Goodreads Giveaway

If you’re in the US and looking for a chance to win a free, signed paperback copy of my YA fantasy novella, Magic’s Stealing, I’ve got a Goodreads giveaway going on from now until January 24th. I’m trying to promote the book, and I figured a giveaway would be a good chance. Not sure if it’ll help promote sales or not, but we’ll see how it goes. 🙂

In the meantime, if you want to see a Goodreads Giveaway from me but you’re not in the US (as I know several of my blog readers aren’t), let me know which countries you want to see a giveaway in, and I’ll run by the post office and see where I can feasibly ship review copies to. I’m hoping to do another giveaway later in the year if this one goes well, and I’d like to open it up to more than just the US. 🙂

Click here to enter the giveaway!

Lastly…

#1lineWed

Every Wednesday there’s #1lineWed fun on Twitter. Basically, there’s a theme posted every week, and you try to find a line to match that theme from one of your current works-in-progress. It’s a lot of fun, and a good way to meet another writers and see some really awesome lines.

This week, the theme was “Old.” These were my tweets:

“Her face revealed only parsimonious wrinkles, what he fondly referred to as marks of wisdom.” (The Multiverse Chronicles – written by both me and Isaac)

“Faint cracks ran along their stone skins from a long history of mortal fingers stroking the statues for favor.” (The Shadow War)

If you haven’t done so already, put it on your to-do list for next week. They usually announce the theme several days in advance, so if you’re not around for Wednesday, you can still schedule tweets (I use Tweetdeck) to go live at a later date.

That’s it for now. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this post, and you can look for information about Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel and The Multiverse Chronicles release dates to come very soon. 😀

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Filed under Book Covers, Business Ventures, Writing

Tagged as #1lineWed, Author Shout, cover contest, Cover Wars, Curse of the Fairfield Witch, free book, Goodreads, Goodreads giveaway, Magic's Stealing, novella, Paul Ferrante, Stephanie Flint, Twitter, writing fun, writing tips for authors, YA fantasy

January 8, 2016 · 9:10 pm

Behind The Scenes – The Devil’s Third Book Cover Remake

Lately, I’ve been working on remaking the book covers for Rebekkah Ford’s Beyond the Eyes trilogy, and I just finished remaking the cover for the final book, The Devil’s Third. (You can see the other two book covers remade: Beyond the Eyes and Dark Spirits).

For the updated version, we settled on using an angel as the character on the cover. The author found a couple images she liked (we cycled through a few before choosing these two), and got the advice of her fans before settling on the current model. Then I found an older image I’d taken of a bird with outstretched wings, did some inversions to the colors (this was actually the inner portion of the wings, rather than the outside shot), and put together the composite image. Of course, we also tried to stick with the same placement and feel of the other two covers.

Needless to say, I think I’ve improved a lot since I first started making book covers. Now, here’s the remake of Rebekkah Ford’s The Devil’s Third, a paranormal romance.

Before:

SBibb - The Devil's Third - Wrap-Around Book Cover

After:

SBibb - The Devil's Third - Wrap-around Book Cover Remake

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=95544481 – man

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=309884051 – graveyard

All other images are my own.

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Tagged as Beyond the Eyes, book cover design, book cover remake, book covers, cover art, cover design, creating a book cover, designing a book cover, paranormal book covers, paranormal romance, Rebekkah Ford, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, series, Stephanie Flint, The Devil's Third, trilogy

December 21, 2015 · 9:00 am

Cover Reveal for a Fellow Author – Cogling!

Today I am super excited to be hosting a cover reveal for Cogling by Jordan Elizabeth. 😀

See, a while back I got the pleasure of beta-reading an earlier draft of this story, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating its release into the world. I’ve long wondered what the cover would look like (I did not create this cover). Now I finally get to see it, and so do you!

Are you ready?

I’m telling you, this cover is really pretty. 😀

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…..

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COGLING

A Steampunk Fairy Tale for Young Adults who love a little Romance in their Adventures

When fifteen-year-old Edna Mather tears an expensive and unfamiliar pocket watch off her little brother’s neck, he crumbles into a pile of cogs right before her eyes. Horrified, Edna flees for help, but encounters Ike, a thief who attempts to steal the watch before he realizes what it is: a device to power Coglings—clockwork changelings left in place of stolen children who have been forced to work in factories.

Desperate to rescue her brother, Edna sets off across the kingdom to the hags’ swamp, with Ike in tow. There, they learn Coglings are also replacing nobility so the hags can stage a rebellion and rule over humanity. Edna and Ike must stop the revolt, but the populace believes hags are helpful godmothers and healers. No one wants to believe a lowly servant and a thief, especially when Ike has secrets that label them both as traitors.

Together, Edna and Ike must make the kingdom trust them or stop the hags themselves, even if Ike is forced to embrace his dark heritage and Edna must surrender her family.

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COGLING has already gained advanced praise from NY Times Bestselling author, Maria V. Snyder!

“This is a fun YA Steampunk novel. It’s very different than many other Steampunk stories I’ve read. Basic plot is Edna’s brother is kidnapped by hags and replaced with a “cogling” and she’s on a mission to find and rescue her brother. The world is a Victorian-era with a strict class system for the humans and for those with magic. The woman with magic are called hags and the men with magic are ogres and they’re not nice and are planning to change the system. I really enjoyed learning about the world and the characters are well drawn and engaging.”

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Check out COGLING on GoodReads and Curiosity Quills.

Meet the author
Jordan Elizabeth Mierek lives in a dream world. Sometimes she comes out to do her day job, but most of the time she is writing about her favorite people – her characters! COGLING is her fourth book. Her previous steampunk series, the Treasure Chronicles, include TREASURE DARKLY and BORN OF TREASURE. Her debut novel, ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW, is a young adult fantasy-horror. You can find her short stories in numerous anthologies. Check out her website, JordanElizabethMierek.com, for contests and bonus stories!

Win a steampunk necklace!

Click here to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.

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Filed under Book Covers, Writing

Tagged as beautiful cover art, book cover reveal, changeling, cogling, Curiosity Quills, Jordan Elizabeth, Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, steampunk, young adult fantasy

December 16, 2015 · 8:49 pm

Behind the Scenes – One More Night – Book Cover

For this cover, we wanted to keep to a similar theme as the first book, Separate Lives, but with enough differences to show the different tone and themes. So I kept the same general format and images, but found new silhouettes to link to the new characters. To distinguish the modern-day character, I gave him a dark, shadowy appearance that still let some of his features show through, unlike the ghostly characters in the background. For the back cover, I simply changed the color scheme of the first book’s back cover to mimic the color scheme of the second book.

This is the result: