Category Archives: Client Work

July 8, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Blood Loss

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted to have the dark color scheme while keeping the cover light enough that the colors wouldn’t go to black in the print version. So I created the basic scene first, then played with multiple color options once those basics were in place. For the castle’s glow, I masked out all the windows, then tinkered with the lighting on layers below the castle layer. Once I had the light source, I added ‘soft light’ and ‘overlay’ layers over the castle layer. I typically use dark blue/purple for shadows, and yellow for highlights.

The proof version was fairly blurry, due to using comp images. Comp images are handy when you’re trying to see if the idea will work or not. When I created the near-final, I smoothed out the blending and adjusted how strong the gaussian blur was on the background layers, thus making it considerably sharper. Once you have the full-sized stock images, it becomes much easier to smooth out edges and see how sharp it will really go.

For the back cover, I stepped back several layers, removed the man and castle, adjusted my retouch layers, then flipped the merged image horizontally. This is the result:

SBibb - Blood Loss - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-jagged-rocks-edge-cliff-desert-image29674305

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-edge-cliff-turquoise-ocean-image47133437

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-morning-fog-mountains-image22074991

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-fog-lake-image37546892

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-ruins-tintern-abbey-former-cistercian-church-th-wales-banks-river-wye-close-to-english-border-image44804119

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-beautiful-dark-woman-black-robe-sword-fantasy-legend-image48884659

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-smoke-background-image27490166

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-floating-smoke-black-background-image36147493

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-hooded-man-image9241498

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Blood Loss, book cover design, fantasy, fantasy book cover art, Mathias Colwell, Mathias GB Colwell, Melange Books, photographic illustration, publishing, SBibb, Stephanie Flint

July 1, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Dusk Runner

A cover for Melange Books. For this one, we focused on conveying the genre of the book, rather than particular characters. As such, people who like other fantasy books in a similar vein to this one can easily recognize another book they might enjoy. The author suggested covers similar to those of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, which reminded me of the cover art for Game of Thrones. I merged the two styles, and this is the result:

For the back cover, I flipped the background from the front cover with a few adjustments. Also, I saved the bow and arrow silhouette as a smart object so that it could easily be resized and added to the spine if the publisher chooses to do so.

SBibb - Dusk Runner - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-brown-leather-texture-image21958744
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-old-yellow-brown-vintage-parchment-paper-texture-image24082203
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-ethnic-arrows-image22897606
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-bow-image11349751

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, cover art, Dusk Runner, fantasy novel covers, fantasy novels, Mathias Colwell, Mathias G.B. Colwell, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, SBibb, Stephanie Flint

June 17, 2015 · 11:13 am

Behind the Scenes – Hide and Seek

A cover for Melange Books. For this one, the publisher wanted a cover that conveyed the romance of the two novellas in this book, as well as the suspense and western themes. So we stuck with a silhouette, darker (but still romantic) colors, and softer imagery. For the back cover, I simply used part of the desert landscape imagery I hadn’t used from the front, then applied a similar treatment.

This is the result:

SBibb - Hide and Seek - Back Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-black-tailed-jackrabbit-sniffing-southern-california-image38700799
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-coyote-image7507496
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-arizona-desert-image9382933
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-cowboy-couple-her-try-to-leave-silhouette-image36627786

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover art, Dreamstime stock, Hide and Seek, Lois Carroll, Melange Books, Romance Novel Covers, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint

June 10, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – City of Warrensburg Mural

Today I’m deviating from my usual book cover behind the scenes to go behind the scenes of a large mural project I finished last year, doing work for one of my professors from college.

This project lasted approximately 18 months (April 2013 through October 2014). Dr. Bonsall directed the project, and the majority of the photos are hers. Other contributing photographers include: Robert Breshears, Andrew Mather, Bryan Tebbenkamp, Lowell Toole and Tricia Mannering, and special thanks goes to: Denton Humphrey, Lisa Irle, Brett Penrose, Courtney Stephens, Lisa Schmidt, Paula Hertwig Hopkins, UCM Photographic Services and Johnson County Historical Society. The canvas was printed by Jerry Schmidt, and I did the computer artistry of blending all the images together. The mural currently resides in the Warrensburg, MO city hall.

Dr. Bonsall was one of my professors from my Bachelor of Science photography degree, and during her class, I was starting to do a lot of work focusing on digital manipulation of photographs. While I was still in college, she had commissioned me to do a couple smaller works where I blended various images into a single poster for her, and then after I graduated, she got a hold of me again and asked if I might be interested in this job. My job consisted of taking the photographs she provided, along with the sketches, and placing the photographs in a pleasing combination, then seamlessly blending them together.

The mural consisted of eight panels in four sections, with two panels per section placed side by side on canvas. Each section detailed a different area of focus: Whiteman Airforce Base, the University of Central Missouri, the town of Warrensburg, and the Union Pacific and Amtrak train station. The goal was to have each panel flow into the next panel, even though the categories were different.

For an example of scale:

(Myself on the left, Dr. Bonsall on the right, in front of the completed mural).

These are each of the four main panels:

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Filed under Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Amtrak, city hall, City of Warrensburg, digital montage, Dr. Bonsall, Missouri, montage, mural, Robert Breshears, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, Union Pacific, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Whiteman Airforce Base

June 3, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Sojourn: The Wildlands

A cover for Melange Books. I had a lot of fun putting this one together. There are quite a few pieces in this particular cover (14 stock images in total), and I worked with the author to get all the right images and choose the best placement for them. For example: choosing what kind of bow the male model should have. Since the art form mentioned a bow, but didn’t specify crossbow or long bow, I emailed the author to clarify. Helpful to ask about these things up front so you don’t spend a lot of time masking out and fitting pieces, only to find it doesn’t fit the story. In the meantime, I enjoyed playing with the lighting and colors.

This is the result:

SBibb - Sojourn: The Wildlands - Back Book Cover
Stock images from Dreamstime:

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Tagged as BD Messick, book cover, book covers, cover art, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, post-apolocalyptic covers, SBibb, Sojourn, The Wildlands, YA novel

May 27, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Rogue

This cover (for Melange Books) one was an example of where having masked layers and the auto-align tool in Photoshop CS6 can be useful. This particular cover was comprised of 13 stock images in total, with a few of them being used more than once in various places across the manipulation (the explosion was made larger/smaller, flipped, and masked in different portions to create the multiple explosion effects). Not only that, but the two people were comprised of seven images, in order to create the pose that was requested. Made it really handy to have all the pieces in place, so all I had to do was replace the stock proof images with the full-sized ones (adjusted with auto-align, of course). My proofs tend to look fairly close to the final image, but not as smooth/retouched.

One part of this particular cover I wasn’t looking forward to finalizing was replacing all the little bullet holes with their full-sized stock image. However, once I got to looking closely (and tested placing the full-sized image), I realized I didn’t need to. The small size and texture affects rendered the slight watermark running through the particular bullet hole unnoticeable. So while the publisher picked up the stock for licencing reasons, I didn’t actually replace that particular stock image. Something handy to keep in mind when finalizing parts of covers that have a strong illustrated tendency to them (just don’t forget to purchase the original stock image).

This is the result:

SBibb - Rogue - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-giant-explosion-image11961605

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-miami-skyline-image18771783

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-office-building-image37590020

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-woman-soldier-beautiful-young-gun-image45220857

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-woman-military-clothes-army-girl-full-length-gray-background-image31818118

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-elegant-young-handsome-bodybuilder-image23014601

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-young-man-gun-image19881447

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-handsome-man-sexy-outdoors-playful-smile-image33633873

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-couple-photographing-themselves-beach-young-ocean-image33893019

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-beautiful-woman-military-clothes-isolated-sexy-fit-army-girl-full-length-white-image46894231

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-lone-hiker-brick-sidewalk-image939658

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-blue-fire-flames-image7329188

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-bullet-hole-image8175422

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as action covers, book cover art, book cover design, cover art, cs6, laura ranger, Melange Books, photomanipulation, photoshop, rogue, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, steve soderquist, thriller covers, using stock images

May 20, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Anthropologist’s Daughter

This is a cover for Barking Rain Press. For this cover, we wanted a clear connection to its related series cover ( The Revolving Year ), so we used the same background, same position of the lead character, and same placement of text. Since this is a prequel, this cover has a younger character. However, while the stock image we chose for the field (we wanted to change the seasons to match the story) has a young girl in the image, her hair was too long for the main character. Normally I’ll just photoshop the hair, but it turned out she needed more of a pixie/elfin cut. Now, the story of this goes that I was heading out of town to go visit friends at an anime convention (Naka-Kon… wonderful convention for those of you who like Japanese anime and culture), and while there, I noticed one of my friends had the same hairstyle that I was looking for. I asked if she’d mind me taking a picture of the back of her head for the cover, got permission, and voila! One pixie cut ready to go! I photoshopped the cover to include the new image, thinned the neck a bit to make it fit better for a child’s, and this is the result. Sometimes you’ll find the image you need around you. And it’s helpful to have a camera on hand when you do. 🙂

Stock images from Shutterstock and from my own personal stock.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=105630767
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=99948338

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Barking Rain Press, book cover design, book covers, cover art, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, photoshop, Revolving Year, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, The Anthropologist's Daughter, Vanessa Furse Jackson

May 13, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Curse of the Fairfield Witch

A cover for Melange Books.

For this one, the author and publisher already had a few of the stock images chosen that they wanted to use for the cover. I took what they had, tweaked the placement, added the title information, tinkered with coloring to give it the spooky graveyard look, then did the retouching.

Since they already had the model chosen, and already had the full-sized stock image, I went ahead and did the major retouches on the proof image. It saved time in the long run, especially since I made that image into a smart object so that I could easily move it around.

The author later found the background he liked, which I retouched and manipulated (removing the lampposts) to fit better with the graveyard in the story. We played with the idea of adding headstones in the background, but they proved to be too distracting on the near-final, so we removed those. Sometimes less is better, especially when you’re trying to design a cover that will catch the eye and not make the potential reader sit there trying to figure out what a particular element is. (Unless you want that particular surreal effect, then go for it).

For the back cover, the author requested we use one of my first proofs for the background, only edited to work as the back.

This is the result:

SBibb - The Curse of the Fairfield Witch - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-portrait-beautiful-gothic-girl-wearing-halloween-costume-studio-shot-black-background-image34206917

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-old-misty-graveyard-night-mystery-group-tombstones-image34053926

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-gothic-graveyard-3-image12561567

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-blue-fog-dark-forest-fog-night-image37184209

See the previous books in this series: Spirits of the Pirate House and Roberto’s Return

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Tagged as A T.J. Jackson Mystery, book cover art, book cover design, Dreamstime, Melange Books, Paul Ferrante, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, photoshop CS6, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, The Curse of the Fairfield Witch

May 6, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Mira’s Last

A cover for Melange Books. This is the third in The Sword of Lumina series. (See the previous covers: Mira’s View and Mira’s Hope ). Though I used a similar model for the face, I was able to find a working image of the same model for the body, then made sure the style of the covers matched the complete series. The title placement remained the same, while the mood of each cover was matched to the mood of the particular book.

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-elf-beautiful-gray-background-image37782997

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-portrait-beautiful-woman-image14803877

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-old-rusted-broadsword-image24282162

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-sunset-beach-image679100

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-spooky-castle-image14970564

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as cover design, elves and fantasy, Erin Elliott, fantasy novels, Mira's Last, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, SBibb, sequel book covers, Stephanie Flint, wrap-around book cover, young adult covers

April 29, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Shadows of the Night

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we tinkered with a few ideas before finally settling on the current design. While I initially searched out models on Dreamstime, the publisher suggested that Romance Novel Covers might have the particular type of character we were looking for. I went through the site, selected a few I thought fit the art form’s description of the character best, and tested them in the proof until we decided this one worked best. I gave the city a night glow, and this is the result: