A T.J. Jackson Mystery | Stephanie Flint

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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

Behind the Scenes – Roberto’s Return

This is a cover for Melange Books, the next in the T.J. Jackson Mysteries.

For this cover, the author already had a pretty good idea of what he wanted, and he even had images of the park he wanted used for the background. However, since it was a recognizable building, I did have the author check on the need for a property release. (Just like models, many buildings and areas require property releases. It’s a good idea to check before shooting in an area to see if you’ll need one). The author was able to get permission, and so we were able to proceed with that image.

I also ended up doing a bit of digital illustration (Photoshop CS6) to piece everything together. Since we wanted a very specific pose, and the author had the outfit necessary, he had a friend model for him and shoot the image, and then I picked out the stock images of the man’s head to best fit the character. I added in a different sky, since we wanted sunset, and we tried to mimic the baseball text for the title itself.

Side note: Since most of these covers have been revealed by the time I post them, and since I usually try to post behind the scenes information when I reveal the covers on my blog, I’m going to start calling these posts “Behind the Scenes” instead of “Cover Reveal.” Sorry for any confusion. 🙂