Tag Archives: cover art

April 9, 2017 · 5:47 pm

Behind the Scenes – Sojourn: The Beastlands

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted to match the style of the previous books, The Wildlands and The Deadlands. I kept the general placement of the titles and author name the same (though we did experiment with different placements), plus we kept with the general theme of the two characters walking on a path to a different destination. In this case, we used the same model imagery from the second cover, but I did a few adjustments to their images to make them seem a bit different (pushed them closer, adjusted the girl’s hair a bit, and flipped their images). We added a couple pieces of deserted imagery to add to the abandoned feel, and I used a lot of Photoshop masking in layers to get the various jungle layers to mesh properly and look natural.

This is the result:

Behind the Scenes - Sojourn: The Beastlands Book Cover

Behind the Scenes - Sojourn: The Beastlands Back of Book Cover
Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-jungle-green-thickets-mountains-malaysia-image56303604 – jungle
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-abandoned-road-image16324304 – road
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-tropical-rainforest-khao-yai-national-park-thailand-world-h-image68662437 – jungle overlook
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-abandoned-diner-photo-taken-off-interstate-i-usa-image56088809 – abandoned diner
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-abandoned-car-image23149927 -abandoned car
People – From the Dollar Photo Club

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as BD Messick, book cover, cover art, cover design, Fire and Ice, Melange Books, photographic illustration, Rayne Mirago, Rayne Mirago saga, Sojourn, Sojourn the Beastlands, Stephanie Flint, The Beastlands, YA novel, young adult

July 25, 2016 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – M.O.B. (Mean Old Bastard)

I based the style of this cover on the Matt Helm and Travis McGee series per the author’s request. While I still tried to modernize it, I applied several illustrative effects to the pictures using photoshop filters and layer styles. Originally I looked on Dreamstime and Shutterstock for stock photos that fit the main character of the novel, but they weren’t hitting the mark, so the author sent me a picture of his own (that he was free to use), as an example. I liked the look and asked if I could try working that photo into the design of the cover, and this is the result:

SBibb - MOB_Cover_Blog

MOB - Wraparound Book Cover

Photo of the man on the motorcycle provided by the author. Other stock images are my own.

I also formatted both the print and ebook editions of the book. For the ebook edition, I decided to use the silhouette of the man on the motorcycle as a break between section (whereas the print edition has extra line space between sections, and uses the silhouette as part of the chapter title). Since I wanted to try matching the title font to the chapters, I created all the chapter titles as images and used those in place of the typed titles in the ebook. However, the current previewer for Kindle wouldn’t render a transparent GIF properly in the iPad/iPhone option (rendered them as black, illegible boxes), so I created them as JPGs. They might look a tad bit funny if on a background color other than white (such as cream), but at least all the main devices should be able to read them. I plan testing a PNG file for transparency on a future project, but I wanted to make sure that the current file will be readable for everyone until I can test the file formats separately.

Buy M.O.B. for the Kindle or as a paperback.

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Filed under Book Covers, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, Chuck Hocter, cover art, cover illustration, ebook formatting, images for chapter titles, M.O.B., Mean Old Bastard, mystery novel, photographic illustration, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, thriller

July 13, 2016 · 12:15 pm

Behind the Scenes – Night of the Hunter

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover we wanted a dark, sinister tone, and the author asked for the demon-like creatures to be staring out of the darkness. To achieve the appearance of the demon, I used a base image to start with, then used various layers in Photoshop to apply the red glow, which I then smudged and liquefied to match the model’s facial features.

Since the author said the main character is supposed to be a reincarnation of the main character from his other books, I used the same model, but with a different hairstyle.

This is the result:

Book Cover - Night of the Hunter

Back of Book Cover - Night of the Hunter

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-young-vampire-man-shirtless-gesturing-to-camera-portrait-showing-his-torso-chest-abs-looking-dark-background-image60136451 – demon

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-abstract-fog-smoke-background-image69643118 – fog

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-dangerous-man-gun-sunglasses-standing-abandoned-house-image65411957 – black shirt

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-businessman-gun-white-image47821012 – aimed gun

Head image from Dollar Photo Club

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Filed under Book Covers, Uncategorized

Tagged as book cover design, choosing the right cover for your genre, cover art, cover design, dark tone, demon, Melange Books, Night of the Hunter, Richard Dawes, Stephanie Flint, thriller

June 20, 2016 · 7:19 pm

Behind the Scenes – The Poe Codec

A cover for Cave Hollow Press. For this cover, they wanted to incorporate elements of Edgar Allen Poe’s work and a feeling of a mystery. We settled on a raven and a locket (the locket plays an important role in the story) and we used the codec from inside the book (provided by the author) for the background. We went for red and black colors to add to the mysterious look, and I chose a cob-webby font that would add to the eerie mystery and work well for middle grade fiction.

I also did a wrap-around print cover. However, knowing that the primary form would be paperback–and knowing that CMYK does not play well with red– I created this cover first in CMYK (a smaller color space), and then converted it to sRGB for the online editions.

Something important to keep in mind when working with print editions is that if you download a template from Createspace, that template is in sRGB. You will need to convert it to CMYK prior to moving the image over for a wrap-around cover… or potentially need to redo portions of the image. (This is mostly a problem if you have a heavy amount of red on the cover.)

Another trick I found for getting the red color to work well in CMYK is to create a layer of red color based on the title (Hex Code: E32E24), overlaying it across all red portions of the cover (I masked out the locket and publisher logo), and the lowering the opacity to 30%. (I use Adobe Photoshop CS6). I’d read an article that suggested that CMYK does better with “pure” colors, and by adding the red overlay, that made the colors seem more “pure” for its color space.

I also did the interior formatting. You can check that out using the “look inside” feature on Amazon. 🙂

This is the end result:

Behind the Scenes - The Poe Codec

Behind the Scenes - The Poe Codec - Wraparound Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-raven-image36339410 – raven
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-remembrance-image28935144 – locket

Code picture provided by the author.

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work

Tagged as book cover design, Cave Hollow Press, cover art, createspace, getting red to work in CMYK, masking, Michael Crandell, overlay, photoshop CS6, Poe Codec, print edition, red color and CMYK, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint

June 6, 2016 · 8:09 am

Behind the Scenes – Shadow Notes

This is a cover for Barking Rain Press. For this cover, the publisher wanted to stick with the blue and white color scheme, which plays a major role in the story. The author provided a few example covers of books with similar tones, which I used to get an idea of the design style: the style of scenery, the font and title placement, and the general mood of the cover.

This is the result:

Book Cover - Shadow Notes

Wraparound Book Cover - Shadow Notes

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-351762476/stock-photo-lonely-woman-walking-in-the-park-with-trees-at-snowy-day-snowfall-in-park-with-lonely-walking.html

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-27596422/stock-photo-woman-with-psychic-pressure-in-a-corridor.html

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-44825947/stock-photo-walk-in-winter.html

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-156469889/stock-photo-frozen-land-in-winter-time.html

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Filed under Book Covers, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Barking Rain Press, book covers, cover art, cover design, designing a book cover, Laurel S. Peterson, psychic thriller, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Shadow Notes, Stephanie Flint

May 27, 2016 · 10:00 am

Behind the Scenes – The Quarter Horse

A cover for Melange Books’s YA imprint, Fire and Ice. This is the fourth book in The Horse Rescuers series, and so we wanted to keep the style the same as the other books. In this case, we kept the same layout and font. We tried a couple different colors as the main color scheme (each book is a bit different), and ultimately settled on the gray-blue.

For the horse image, I used the art form to reference the kind of horse the author wanted, and then I created a lightbox on Dreamstime with several horse options (and I checked to see what general season I should be looking for). The author selected two of those images, which I made rough proofs. Once we narrowed it down, I finalized the cover.

This is the end result:

Rough version of the back cover (subject to change per the Publisher’s needs):

The Quarter Horse - Back Cover Blog

Stock photo from Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-bay-horse-image3555999 – horse

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Tagged as book cover design, book covers, cover art, designing a book cover, horse story, Melange Books, Patricia Gilkerson, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, YA book covers, young adult

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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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work

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

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: