Category Archives: Client Work

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

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 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 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:

SBibb -One More Night - Book Cover Back

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-judge-gavel-image16964080 – gavel
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-texture-creamy-white-rice-paper-torn-edges-isolated-white-background-image29821402 – paper texture
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-brown-package-paper-torn-to-reveal-white-panel-ideal-copy-space-image34962594 – torn paper texture

Stock images from Dollar Photo Club:
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=77165739 – saloon
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=95395250 – lady
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=60664546 – farm guy
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=70544393 – captain
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=80095962 – man

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Tagged as book cover design, cover art, cover design, design process, designing a book cover, Melange Books, One More Night, photographic illustration, publishing, Rhonda Strehlow, sequel covers, Stephanie Flint, stock imagery, stock images, using stock images in book covers, using stock images on book covers

November 25, 2015 · 7:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – Requiem In Red

A cover for Barking Rain Press. This is the sequel to Eine Kleine Murder by Kaye George. (Note that the publisher’s version of the cover is slightly different, and I modeled the sequel cover’s border around the main image after their version). For this cover, the publisher wanted to convey the dark mood of the book, along with a hint at the musical themes involved. They provided a couple possible background images and ideas, which I then put together in a rough comp. I also found the music sheets (part of one larger image of multiple music sheets, which I cut-and-pasted, and then used Photoshop CS6’s warp tool in order to place them in varying positions). I also added the conductor’s baton in the hand of the statue, made it look like the baton was the same material as the statue, and added the directional shadow. The goal was to have everything fit together smoothly.

Afterwards, the publisher asked about adding a church in the background, behind the woman’s statue. So I placed the church (careful to get the size and placement in the image right so that it looked like it was in the background), blurred the background around the statue a bit for a focal effect, added more now to the steeple, and also played with the darker sky from the church image.

This is the result:

SBibb - Requiem In Red - Wrap-Around Book Cover
Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=101040352 – musical background

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=22681549 – graveyard

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=15224833 – baton

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=22723609 – music sheets

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-22681552/stock-photo-village-church-in-snow-czech-republic.html – church

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Tagged as Barking Rain Press, book cover design, cover art, Cressa Caraway Musical Mystery, designing a book cover, Kaye George, muder mystery, photomanipulation, Requiem in Red, sequel book, sequel book covers, Stephanie Flint, wrap-around book cover

November 20, 2015 · 6:46 pm

Behind the Scenes – A Day Without a Night – Book Cover

This is a cover for Melange Books. We wanted to match this with the cover for the first book in the series (Note: I did not make the cover for the first book), so we kept the black background and the same styles and general placement of the text. The author had a few ideas for symbols that they wanted to use, so they found the corresponding stock images. After tinkering a bit with placement, this is the final result:

Stock images from 123RF and Dollar Photo Club.

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=5187071 – sword
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/Search?k=88389030 – background
http://www.123rf.com/search.php?word=29866867 – moon and sun emblem
http://www.123rf.com/search.php?word=10707247 – book

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Tagged as A Day without a Night, book cover, book cover art, book cover design, book covers, cover art, cover design, designing a book cover, fantasy, JTAdeline, Melange Books, Stephanie Flint, stock art

November 4, 2015 · 8:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – The Girl Who Flew Away

This is a cover for Barking Rain Press. The author had several ideas on their art form for how the cover might look, and they listed a few options for symbolism. After reading the form, I had an idea of the style I thought might work. I found the images (including the sketchy dragonflies, both the illustration and the creature referencing the book) and put together a mock-up. My initial mock-up had a different background, which included cliffs and a waterfall but didn’t really give the right feel in regards to setting. I sent another idea for the background, just the picture, along with the mock-up, and they asked to try it. This is the end result. 🙂

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=94726207

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=171422249

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=116280835

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=146807903

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Tagged as adventure, backpacking, Barking Rain Press, book cover design, book covers, contemporary, cover art, mystery, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, The Girl Who Flew Away, Val Muller, wrap-around cover, ya

September 25, 2015 · 9:43 pm

Behind the Scenes – Beyond the Eyes – Cover Remake

This is a cover for Rebekkah Ford. For this cover, we redid a cover I created for her three years ago, back when I was trying to find willing authors to take a chance on me so I could build my portfolio (thank you!).

At the time, we came up with this:

The goal was to create something mysterious, with a bit of a taste of horror for her first YA paranormal. At the time, I took inspiration from the cover of Clockwork Angel, the cover art of which I adore.

However, this was an earlier cover of mine, so the font effects are a tad amateurish (and I hadn’t even justified the original back cover copy… which I later updated once I discovered that trick). Not only that, but the cover felt too much like a horror novel, and wasn’t attracting as many romance readers as it should (since this is definitely a paranormal romance).

So Rebekkah contacted me again a couple months ago to see about updating the covers for this series. She had a few stock images in mind, and after working through a few proofs and font placement, we came up with this remake for the first book:

(See how much better the back cover formatting looks after three more years of experience?)

The woman on the cover clearly resembles the main character, Paige, the shadow in the distance could easily be a sinister dark spirit (or a mysterious immortal), and the eerie forest distinctly fits a prominent setting of the story. I blurred the background to help make the model stand out, then flipped it for the back cover, and darkened the spine to make sure the words were readable. This cover should now attract paranormal romance readers. In addition, the straightforward text should attract a bit of an older audience (this series fits the upper YA/NA categories).

Personally, I like both covers, but having read the book, I suspect the new cover will attract more of the target audience.

You can find Beyond the Eyes on Goodreads.

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=281147264

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=107037647

Read more from the author’s point of view:

http://rebekkahford.com/2015/09/25/two-mistakes-i-made-with-my-first-book-cover/

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Beyond the Eyes, Beyond the Eyes trilogies, book covers, cover remakes, covers, doing a remake of a cover, haunting, NA book cover, new book covers, paranormal romance, photographic illustration, Rebekkah Ford, redoing a cover, Stephanie Flint

August 12, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Oh Wicked Escort

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author already had a pretty good idea of what they wanted it to look like, and they provided a mockup along with the art form.

My job, then, was to find the appropriate stock images, the right font, and position those images based on what they had. In addition, I added the gilded, embossed effects to enhance the feeling that the book came from the particular era. I was a little concerned about being able to find an actual omnibus, as they requested, but once I went to the idea of using the gilded effect, I searched through the stock site’s illustrations along with photos, and found something that worked. This is the end result:

SBibb - OWEbackcoverblog
Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-brown-leather-book-cover-image7811399
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-vector-image-omnibus-th-century-image30204939
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-street-lamp-isolated-white-background-image51506457

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover illustration, DL Robinson, historical suspense, Melange Books, Oh Wicked Escort, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, Victorian London

July 15, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Stage

This is a cover for Barking Rain Press. For this cover, the author and publisher decided to focus on the setting, rather than characters, so we set out to create a mysterious club. With symbols from the book and direction from the publisher, I incorporated various different stock images from Shutterstock (provided by the publisher) to create a new scene: a nightclub for vampires. I chose the swirls to overlay across the door to add a hint of mysticism, and we went with the blue color because of its symbolism in the story (sacred to the vampires). For the back cover, the publisher asked me to use Seattle’s famous ‘Gum Wall,’ to place the novel. She wanted a ticket booth, so I merged a couple different ticket windows, which will serve to hold the back cover copy. You can see the results below. 🙂