Tag Archives: book cover design

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

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:

And the back cover option, including the text provided for the spine and the ISBN/publisher information:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-towering-skyscrapers-image20897660
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-red-smoke-abstract-background-image13422380

Model image from : http://www.romancenovelcovers.com

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Tagged as book cover design, cover art, Dreamstime, photo manipulation, photorgaphic illustration, Richard Dawes, Romance Novel Covers, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Shadows of the Night, Stephanie Flint, thriller covers

April 22, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Taking Chances

This is a book cover for Melange Books.

When working on book covers, some of my clients ask for suggestions for their book covers, while others come knowing exactly what they want. For this cover, we went with the latter. The author knew they wanted the cover to be in 3 panels, with a good idea of what went in each one. They even had an idea of the stock image they wanted for the skyline (which happened to be from Dreamstime, so that worked perfectly). I put the pieces together and played with color effects to give it the warm, desert glow, then blended everything together.

This is the final result:

SBibb - Taking Chances - Back Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-young-happy-couple-image3071658

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-phoenix-arizona-skyline-downtown-az-sunny-day-image36673329

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-palm-cardboard-paper-texture-image28168233

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Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover art, Melange Books, photo illustration, romance novel cover, Rose Marie Meuwissen, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, stock use, taking chances

April 15, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Great Forest of Shee

This is a cover for Melange Books. I’ve done covers for this author before, but in the previous cases, they were contemporary stories, not fantasy. The author mentioned in the provided art form of the possibility of having the unicorn on the cover, so that’s the direction I went. At first I tried a unicorn running toward the reader, but upon learning that the unicorns in this story where primarily passive, I tried a different route. The calm, resting creature. Originally I had the unicorn as a smaller piece of the cover, but since it didn’t really stand out (the cover lacked a focal point), I brought it forward and made it larger, thus drawing more attention to the unicorn. To add to the magical feel of the place, I increased the yellow and green color tone for the forest, as well as added a leafy texture to the edges of the cover.

This is the result:

SBibb - The Great Forest of Shee - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, fantasy novel, magic book cover, photoillustration, photomanipulation, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, unicorn, YA book covers

April 8, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Murder In Her Mind

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, I wanted to retain the series appearance of the previous two books (Murder in her Dreams and Murder in the Cards) while still focusing on the symbolism in this particular book. Based on the prompt from the author, I searched out the resulting images from Dreamstime, then blended them together to create a surreal image that would work as the cover. This is an example of using texturing to enhance a picture, while still making sure that the main images are individually distinguishable. This is the result:

SBibb - Murder In Her Mind - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-swirly-grunge-image7347354
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-crows-flying-image1181651
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-raven-dance-image1850963
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-swirly-grunge-image6807470
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-mystical-face-image11042411
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-cliffs-moher-under-cloudy-sky-ireland-image18387274

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Tagged as book cover design, cover art, Melange Books, Murder in her Mind, Nell DuVall, photomanipulation, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, stock art in book covers, surreal cover design

April 1, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Witch and the Hairbrush

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author requested an illustrated look, similar to what I created for Screw The Devil’s Daquiri ( https://sbibb.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/behind-the-scenes-screw-the-devils-daiquiri/ ). In order to achieve the effects we wanted, I used stock images. However, I also used quite a few filters and blur effects from Photoshop CS6. These effects can be quite useful when placed in different blending modes, partially masked, and/or at varying levels of opacity. Another trick I used was to put a heavier emphasis of illustration on the background, while only partially applying the filters to the skin and face of the model.

This is the final result:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-small-croatian-village-image14193196

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-portrait-woman-sitting-playing-piano-black-dress-concept-music-art-image34582905

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-witches-broom-image14974800

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-two-witches-image27339945

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-flying-witch-image26918313

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Tagged as book cover design, cover art, illustrated cover art, nick s. howard, photographic illustration, photoshop CS6, photoshop filters, SBibb, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, stock images, the witch and the hairbrush

March 25, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Finding Clara

This is a cover for Melange Books. In this case, the author wanted to show the main character looking into a mirror and seeing a different aspect of their life, other than what they felt. In order to portray both scenes, I looked for stock images where there were multiple images of the model to choose from, both from the back, and from the front. Though the clothing is different, I tried to choose a less obvious difference, as well as placement which would draw less attention to the outfit, and instead focus on the concept of the two different “lives.”

On a technical note, when I usually complete a near-final cover, I use auto-align to get the rough size and position for full-sized stock images based on the proof cover. Lots of layers are typically involved. Every once in a while, however, something doesn’t want to work quite right. In this case, I had a smart object (very useful for maintaining the original size of images and grouping clusters together) decide it didn’t want to be edited. No idea why the layer locked, but with a little bit of searching, I found this link: https://forums.adobe.com/message/1870944

The post of use for this situation suggested to right click the smart object layer that refuses to be edited, open up the resulting menu, then export contents. Save that as a separately named file, and when you reopen the file, it opens as the smart object you were trying to open. Quite handy, I thought.

This is the final result, including the back cover I created for it:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-beautiful-woman-smiling-image15889714
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-victorian-mirror-image12415487
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-man-leaning-country-gate-image21409557
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-beautiful-woman-necklace-looking-image17998425
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-drive-autumn-woods-thanksgiving-day-image46328634

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, cover design, Finding Clara, Jannie Lund, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photoshop CS6, romance novel, SBibb, smart objects, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint

March 11, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Nairobi Bloodstar

This is a cover for Melange Books. In my first proof, I gave this more of a historical movie poster look, but upon learning the book had a bit more of an action-thriller bent, I put more of a focus on the train wreck explosion than the scenery and characters. Still, I added texturing to give the cover the historical feeling, and I played with the coloring (we wanted the red highlights for the ruby). After playing with positioning of the title and the hands with the ruby, this is the final result:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-old-stained-paper-texture-beige-image39122645

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-savanna-landscape-africa-amboseli-kenya-image29222114

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-black-hands-pills-two-african-holding-pain-image37001611

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-ruby-polished-slice-image9155467

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-giant-explosion-image11628125

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-train-crash-accident-image43972160

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, book covers, Carole Hall, cover art, explosions on book covers, historical novel, Melange Books, Nairobi Bloodstar, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Bibb, Stephanie Flint, texturing

March 4, 2015 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The French Couple

A cover for Melange Books. For this one, they already had the main art they wanted on the cover, but they wanted the title redone and a few adjustments made in regards to the overall effects. For this one, I mostly played with adding color to the dark halo around the model’s head, and played with the placement and color of the text so that it felt like part of the cover. This is the result: