Tag Archives: photographic illustration

September 7, 2015 · 8:17 pm

Behind the Scenes – A Wolf Slayer Saga: Dragon Sword

This is a cover for Melange Books. Since we knew we had a sequel coming, we put a little more focus in setting up the basic structure of the cover… the wolf head at top, the series name on the side, and the placement of the title and author name. We also played with the mood, choosing the dark blue color for the forest and the red of the title to create a dramatic, dangerous tone. We chose a model with multiple poses, though I did a bit of photomanipulation to make him look more like how the character is described in the book. I also made both him and the wolf have a more noticeable scowl, and I played with the depth of field to put more of the emphasis on the model.

For the back cover I went with a simple leather texture to match the edge of the front cover with the series title. This is the end result:

SBibb - Dragon Sword - Back Cover

Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/64831097 – leather texture
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/48895294 – wolf head
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/59929394 – swordsman
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/45294831 – snarling wolf
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/58438380 – winter forest
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/19521274 – wolf group

2 Comments

Filed under Book Covers, Photo Illustration

Tagged as A Wolf Slayer Saga, cover creation, cover design, Dragon Sword, fantasy covers, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, Richard Dawes, SBibb, Stephanie Flint, Valka the Wolf Slayer

September 2, 2015 · 8:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – Sojourn: The Deadlands

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we chose to keep the theme similar to the first book in the series, Sojourn: The Wildlands. To do this, we kept a few key elements: the two characters walking with their backs to the reader, a desolate landscape, similar placement of the title treatment and author name, along with the late evening lighting. Though we tried a couple different proofs before this, we found this one to have the strongest appeal.

This is the end result:

SBibb - Sojourn: The Deadlands - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club:

6 Comments

Filed under Book Covers, Photo Illustration

Tagged as BD Messick, cover art, cover design, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, post-apocalyptic, Sojourn: the Deadlands, Stephanie Flint, ya, young adult

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

4 Comments

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

August 5, 2015 · 8:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Orphans’ Inn

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted to give the book a historical feel. The author had found an image of the actual inn in the story, which I used to look for similar buildings. Though we ultimately chose to focus on the feel of the book, rather than use an exact image, the author was able to obtain permission to use a cropped photo of the inn on the back cover. So the picture of the actual inn will be on the back cover, a piece of history that adds to the book’s theme.

I used a similar treatment for both the front and back of the book, using the picture of paper that was nailed to a wall as the guidelines for a frame. The composite image on the front gives a feel for the time period, characters involved, and genre, while the back cover provides room for text. I adjusted the back cover image to make room for the barcode and publisher information.

This was my first time using stock from the Dollar Photo Club, a new stock site that Melange Books uses. While I found that the comp images were very small (which made it hard to render a full mask, which I can usually do with comps from Dreamstime), the final image quality is about the same. I had no problems using Photoshop to resize and align the images with the proof cover.

This is the end result:

SBibb - Orphans' Inn - Back Cover
Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club:

https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/80507187 – map texture
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/61586012 – town
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/73464105 – wagon
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/56496709– girl body
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/65625942 – curly hair
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/84585040 – paper on wall

3 Comments

Filed under Book Covers, Photo Illustration

Tagged as Bullocks Inn, cover art, cover design, historical cover art, historical novel, Martha Deeringer, Melange Books, Orphans' Inn, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, Stephanie Flint, YA historical

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. 🙂

Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-229526110/stock-photo-old-door.html?src=lb-34288799

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-179242310/stock-photo-metal-door-of-the-ancient-castle.html?src=lb-34288799

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-124981262/stock-photo-collage-with-retro-door-knockers-images-from-italy.html?src=lb-34288799

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-257872856/stock-photo-old-copper-door-knob-with-arabic-pattern-on-black-wooden-gate-izmir-turkey.html?src=lb-34288799

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-35080699/stock-photo-close-up-fragment-of-ancient-door-with-lock-keyhole.html?src=lb-34288799

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=221809120

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=221942575

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=42315235

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-150461954/stock-vector-seamless-pattern-with-black-swirls-on-a-white-background.html

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=47336815

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=78116509

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=58882601

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

2 Comments

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

1 Comment

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 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:

5 Comments

Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

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 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

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: