Tag Archives: sequel book covers

November 25, 2015 · 7:00 pm

Behind the Scenes – Requiem In Red

A cover for Barking Rain Press. This is the sequel to Eine Kleine Murder by Kaye George. (Note that the publisher’s version of the cover is slightly different, and I modeled the sequel cover’s border around the main image after their version). For this cover, the publisher wanted to convey the dark mood of the book, along with a hint at the musical themes involved. They provided a couple possible background images and ideas, which I then put together in a rough comp. I also found the music sheets (part of one larger image of multiple music sheets, which I cut-and-pasted, and then used Photoshop CS6’s warp tool in order to place them in varying positions). I also added the conductor’s baton in the hand of the statue, made it look like the baton was the same material as the statue, and added the directional shadow. The goal was to have everything fit together smoothly.

Afterwards, the publisher asked about adding a church in the background, behind the woman’s statue. So I placed the church (careful to get the size and placement in the image right so that it looked like it was in the background), blurred the background around the statue a bit for a focal effect, added more now to the steeple, and also played with the darker sky from the church image.

This is the result:

SBibb - Requiem In Red - Wrap-Around Book Cover
Stock images from Shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=101040352 – musical background

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=22681549 – graveyard

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=15224833 – baton

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=22723609 – music sheets

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-22681552/stock-photo-village-church-in-snow-czech-republic.html – church

Behind the Scenes – Mira’s Last

A cover for Melange Books. This is the third in The Sword of Lumina series. (See the previous covers: Mira’s View and Mira’s Hope ). Though I used a similar model for the face, I was able to find a working image of the same model for the body, then made sure the style of the covers matched the complete series. The title placement remained the same, while the mood of each cover was matched to the mood of the particular book.

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-elf-beautiful-gray-background-image37782997

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-portrait-beautiful-woman-image14803877

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-old-rusted-broadsword-image24282162

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-sunset-beach-image679100

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-spooky-castle-image14970564

Behind the Scenes – Mira’s Hope

This is the cover for the sequel to Mira’s View, from Melange Books.

For this cover, I wanted to keep the same style as the first, with the prominent characters and soft background, as well as the text placement. I added in the snow (see the link at the bottom of this post for the tutorial I referenced) to bring everything together and add extra “oomph.” We experimented with a couple different backgrounds before choosing this one. I also included a second character who plays a large role in the story, and considered bringing in a third character, except that I worried the cover would look busy. I was able to use the same models (Yes, plural. Body and head were different, so as to fit the character description) for the female character, though I did use different stock images of them to help keep the covers varied. It’s the benefit to using Dreamtime’s “Other Stock Images With This Model” link when searching for suitable images. We also included a logline, provided by the author, to help create interest in the story. This is the result: