Tag Archives: SBibb’s Photographic Illustration

October 11, 2017 · 7:33 pm

Behind the Scenes – Hunter of Mysteries

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted the cover to resemble the other books in the series, Night of the Hunter, Demon Hunter, and Hunter in the Darkness. Ultimately, I played with having a brighter background lighting (the sunset) in this one compared to the storm-based backgrounds of the previous colors. We kept the lighting on the model fairly consistent with the others. Also, I had to change the position of the ruins to have it better fit the positioning of the model. Per usual, the character is a composite image in order to create a more accurate rendition.

This is the result:

Hunter of Mysteries - Book Cover

Hunter of Mysteries - Back of Book Cover

Stock images from DepositPhotos:
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-abstract-smoke-moves-black-background-image48826804 – fog

https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-dark-ominous-rain-clouds-lightning-image18357018 – lightning sky

http://depositphotos.com/50429945/stock-photo-beautiful-fiery-orange-and-purple.html – sunset sky

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-capital-fortress-kingdom-urartu-van-turkey-image22014223 – castle ruins

http://depositphotos.com/19531251/stock-photo-handsome-man-pointing-with-gun.html – man body

http://depositphotos.com/39716297/stock-photo-knight-and-princess-love-each.html – head

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as book cover design, cover art, cover design, fantasy, Hunter of Mysteries, Jack Slade, Melange Books, paranormal, photomanipulation, Richard Dawes, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, thriller

July 31, 2017 · 7:00 am

Infinitas Publishing Status Report

Time for a status report! Now that the move to Michigan is mostly complete (and I’ve finally gotten my car back after a run-in with the local wildlife), we’re slowly getting back into the groove of things. Still got a few things to take care of before we’re all settled in, but things are finally getting back to normal. 🙂

DH Divider

Glitch: I’ve completed the major edits, handed the manuscript to Isaac to check over, and have been working on his changes. Due to the structure of the story, we’re actually considering breaking it into three individual stories, each around 35,000 to 45,000 words long. They’ll rely heavily on being read in order, but should each have their own beginning, middle, and end. I’ve sent the first part to a beta-reader to see what she thinks. If we do split the story into three parts, we’ll most likely release each part around two-three weeks apart, so readers won’t have to wait long to read each book. With luck, we’ll be moving forward with this project sooner rather than later.

Fractured Skies: I’ve made the second round of major edits based on Isaac’s feedback from a year or two ago, and now I’ve handed it back to him to look through. It needs a bit of work in order to match it to the style and tone of Distant Horizon. But this one is certainly in progress.

The Multiverse Chronicles: On hold.

Book 3 of The Wishing Blade Series: Working on plotting. Once Fractured Skies is out to beta-readers, I plan to start editing what I already have written of this manuscript, then write the other half of the book.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: Finished one formatting project, now working on book covers. Not much new here.

Game Development: Trying to work out the kinks in a fantasy-based civilization building game. We have a few ideas, but we’ll need to test-play them.

Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with our latest book releases and promotions, sign up for our Infinitas Publishing Newsletter!

I hope you enjoyed this post! 🙂

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Filed under Business Ventures, Writing

Tagged as book cover design, books, Distant Horizon, fantasy, fiction, Fractured Skies, Glitch, Infinitas Publishing, Isaac Flint, publishing, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, science fiction, series, status report, Stephanie Flint, The Multiverse Chronicles, The Wishing Blade series

May 31, 2017 · 11:03 am

Behind the Scenes – Star Sword

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover we wanted to keep with the theme of the previous books: Dragon Sword, Sword of Doom, and Sword of the Quest. I used the same model (piece-parted to get the pose we wanted). In order to try speeding up the process, we fully discussed the author’s vision for the cover before I started piecing everything together. I asked him to clarify a few of his ideas, and we managed to get this put together withing four proofs (minor tweaks on each. I toyed with the idea of the flames pouring over into the series title to add more drama and flare.

This is the result:

Stock images from The Dollar Photo Club (Site now defunct):
katana and three images of the (same) model

Stock from Dreamstime:

https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-bonfire-flame-fire-forest-autumn-flames-image34236555 – fire
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-meteor-shower-isolated-black-background-image49030556 – meteor
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-roche-rock-ancient-ruined-chapel-perched-top-rocky-granite-outcrop-known-as-located-mid-cornwall-dedicated-to-st-image32326080 – ancient ruins
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-black-smoke-red-flames-photo-special-nature-protection-action-intended-to-make-better-habitat-rare-heathland-image39123676 – lower fire

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as A Wolf Slayer Saga, book cover, book cover design, cover art, designing a cover for a series, fantasy, fantasy series, Melange Books, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, Richard Dawes, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Star Sword, Stephanie Flint

May 18, 2017 · 9:32 pm

Behind the Scenes – Sojourn: Enclave

A cover for Melange Books. For this cover, we wanted to match the style of the previous books, The Wildlands, The Deadlands, and The Beastlands. We considered adding the other companions from this book onto the cover, but the cover looked crowded and lost the consistency of the previous covers, so we chose to stick with the two primary characters. This one used several stock images in order to achieve the effect of the dilapidated, overgrown city. Masking was super-useful for this one, as I removed parts of the skyscrapers to make them look broken, and then cloned in bits of the sky on a separate layer to make it look more natural.

SBibb - Book Cover - Sojourn: Enclave

Back Cover:

SBibb - Back of Book Cover - Sojourn: Enclave
Stock images from Dreamstime:

https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-long-span-concrete-beam-image11695956 – concrete wall
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-asleep-image21589475 – vine overgrowth
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-atlanta-downtown-skyline-scenes-january-cloudy-day-image66709798 – cityscape
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-beautiful-inspirational-sun-beams-over-ocean-image30676892 – sky

Deposit Photo Stock
http://depositphotos.com/106813230/stock-photo-cheering-successful-woman.html – cliff/grass
http://depositphotos.com/116621478/stock-photo-tourists-walking-in-the-mountains.html – male hiker
http://depositphotos.com/75580811/stock-photo-friends-group-playing-guitar-in.html – male head
http://depositphotos.com/27318771/stock-photo-little-child-carrying-a-suitcase.html – girl hat
http://depositphotos.com/106813710/stock-photo-woman-over-mountain-view.html – girl head
http://depositphotos.com/116999012/stock-photo-young-woman-backpacker-hiking.html – girl body

Destruction in Background:
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-old-building-image18217109
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-old-building-image18216992
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-demolished-building-grungy-detail-partly-image49371768

Weapons:
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-quiver-made-leather-isolated-white-image34543777
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-archery-equipment-bow-quiver-arrows-target-image29842224
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-hunting-rifle-image12746386

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Filed under Book Covers

Tagged as B.D. Messick, boo cover art, book cover, book cover design, books, Enclave, Fire and Ice, Melange Books, photo manipulation, post-apocalyptic, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Sojourn, YA novel, young adult

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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Filed under Book Covers

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

April 22, 2016 · 7:37 pm

Behind the Scenes – The Rovers

This is a cover for Melange Books. For this cover, the author already had an idea of what image he wanted used for both the front and back. However, the stock image we looked at initially was marked “editorial only,” so that one wasn’t available. However, we did find a similar photograph on the Library of Congress website that didn’t have any known restrictions, in part due to its age.

So, though it was black and white, I retouched the image and filled it in with color, along with sharpening the picture. (Ironically, while I retouched the back cover image as well, I removed the color from that one). We also found a free font that resembled the baseball logo of the referenced team. This was the result:

Book Cover - The Rovers

I changed the border a bit for the front and back of the print covers, due to the trim lines.

Book Cover - The Rovers - Print Edition

Back of Book Cover - The Rovers

Primary stock images from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/91725980

We had a modern-day image we considered using, but couldn’t due to licencing restrictions.

Post Card Border from The Dollar Photo Club (Now Closed)

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-quinn-abbey-image18602883 – Churchyard

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Filed under Book Covers, Client Work, Photo Illustration

Tagged as black and white pictures to color, book cover art, book covers, cover design, Paul Ferrante, photographic illustration, photomanipulation, retouching an old photograph, SBibb's Photographic Illustration, Stephanie Flint, The Rovers

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 8, 2016 · 9:10 pm

Behind The Scenes – The Devil’s Third Book Cover Remake

Lately, I’ve been working on remaking the book covers for Rebekkah Ford’s Beyond the Eyes trilogy, and I just finished remaking the cover for the final book, The Devil’s Third. (You can see the other two book covers remade: Beyond the Eyes and Dark Spirits).

For the updated version, we settled on using an angel as the character on the cover. The author found a couple images she liked (we cycled through a few before choosing these two), and got the advice of her fans before settling on the current model. Then I found an older image I’d taken of a bird with outstretched wings, did some inversions to the colors (this was actually the inner portion of the wings, rather than the outside shot), and put together the composite image. Of course, we also tried to stick with the same placement and feel of the other two covers.

Needless to say, I think I’ve improved a lot since I first started making book covers. Now, here’s the remake of Rebekkah Ford’s The Devil’s Third, a paranormal romance.

Before: