Anatomy of a book cover - Said in Stone
Said in Stone - my 16th book
I thought you might like to see what it takes - beginning to end - for a cover to manifest from my mind to reality. Since this cover was done by a different artist, I thought I'd display how things transpired.
I recently hired Mates Laurentiu. If you like his work, as much as we did, you will find him here: http://mateslaurentiu.deviantart.com/ Our experience with him has been very positive, very professional. In fact, he is busy working on the next cover.
First, the Cover Concept. I come up with the idea. Said in Stone is the third book in a series of four planned prequels. The character on the front is Jaydren - an Earth-Macshara who manipulates all minerals - gem, rock, etc. I wanted the feeling of solid, dependable, reliable - more rigid - straight lines, very commanding presence. Jaydren is strong, and HANDSOME - the ultimate grandfather of Brenna (the most beautiful powerful woman in the world). Below is the reason why I write and not draw. I use simplistic lines because I'm not capable of more.
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Second: My daughter interprets the drawing (as you can see this is necessary) and suggests/adds things. At one time, she would really work on it as if it would be the cover. However, in the interest of time spent for something that wouldn't be used as a cover, I ordered her (yes I used the word ordered!) to just do her "advance-stick character" minus features.
Often, by the time I'm at this point, I also add things because I've been writing more about the character. Included in the email to the artist were pictures of who we think resembles the character (with modifications necessary to the character like beard, longer/shorter hair, eye color, etc.), the clothing, the details (such as what is on the flags in the back) and the colors.
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Third: The artist returns a sketch of what he thought I wanted. I've never had one come back exactly the way I envisioned it to be. With that said, this was impressive. We just needed it tweaked.
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I thought you might like to see what it takes - beginning to end - for a cover to manifest from my mind to reality. Since this cover was done by a different artist, I thought I'd display how things transpired.
I recently hired Mates Laurentiu. If you like his work, as much as we did, you will find him here: http://mateslaurentiu.deviantart.com/ Our experience with him has been very positive, very professional. In fact, he is busy working on the next cover.
First, the Cover Concept. I come up with the idea. Said in Stone is the third book in a series of four planned prequels. The character on the front is Jaydren - an Earth-Macshara who manipulates all minerals - gem, rock, etc. I wanted the feeling of solid, dependable, reliable - more rigid - straight lines, very commanding presence. Jaydren is strong, and HANDSOME - the ultimate grandfather of Brenna (the most beautiful powerful woman in the world). Below is the reason why I write and not draw. I use simplistic lines because I'm not capable of more.
Second: My daughter interprets the drawing (as you can see this is necessary) and suggests/adds things. At one time, she would really work on it as if it would be the cover. However, in the interest of time spent for something that wouldn't be used as a cover, I ordered her (yes I used the word ordered!) to just do her "advance-stick character" minus features.
Often, by the time I'm at this point, I also add things because I've been writing more about the character. Included in the email to the artist were pictures of who we think resembles the character (with modifications necessary to the character like beard, longer/shorter hair, eye color, etc.), the clothing, the details (such as what is on the flags in the back) and the colors.
Third: The artist returns a sketch of what he thought I wanted. I've never had one come back exactly the way I envisioned it to be. With that said, this was impressive. We just needed it tweaked.
Third: Return the sketch with corrections my daughter made (in blue) on the top of his sketch. Along with this we send an apology for messing up his work - but we found this is the best way to make sure the artist understand what we want. Most artists are visual - as you can imagine. She uses PhotoShop to do this.
Fourth: Artist sends the line-art (think color-book) and will not color until I give okay.
Fifth: Artist sends flat-color and we work together to iron out the color palette/tones.
Sixth: Getting there - but a ways to go. Jaydren has black-as-midnight hair (so black it's got blue highlights)
Seventh: The final picture - with title information added.
Now, this journey took longer and had more in-between corrections, but I felt this would give you a better idea about how my covers manifest themselves - glorious in the end.