Book Cover Illustrations

When writing my previous post about Dieselpunk artwork, I forgot the artwork I did about a year ago for Stephen Quayle’s Empire Beneath the Ice. These illustrations arguably fall into the Dieselpunk spectrum (in this case, uniting Nazi weapons, uniforms, and such with the German work on perfecting flying saucers at the end of World […]

As noted in my previous post, black and white art is making somewhat of a comeback in novels and magazines (especially genre magazines). These illustrations act as “value added” enticements for greater sales, while adding only a little in expenses since the same black ink used for printing text will give fine results with grayscale […]

I had the honor of creating an illustration for the cover of the March, 2016 edition of EQ Mag. Above is the final layout. (And you can read the whole issue of the e-magazine is online for free here: March 2016 SQ Magazine). The cat and gal both started as 3D figures, posed, lit, and […]

Once a character design is settled on (you see how I go about doing this when working with an author and/or press in my previous blog post: 3D Modeling and Book and Magazine Art), we are ready to move on toward actually creating the final cover illustration (like the one shown above for Bill McCausland’s […]

Cyborgs, robots, and even some of the ideas in the transhuman/singularity sphere are full of terror for many of us. For starters, many modern robots (as well as that introduced in the Terminator series) bear a terrifying resemblance to animated, steel skeletons — basically the stuff of nightmares. Nor are these just horror or science fiction devices […]

I’ve spent the last few days creating illustrations for the fun of creating them. As such, they don’t have “homes” yet on the cover of a book or magazine — but I’m hoping they will soon. Even if they don’t have the fortune of gracing a cover, the plus is that I have a lot […]

There’s a wealth of how-to material on the Internet. Like everything else on the Net, when it comes to writing fiction, some of the articles are good — some not so much. But here are three articles that have some meat to them when it comes to what makes a good story: First, an interesting […]

I often experiment with 3D characters that I build from base figures, modifying them extensively according to my whims. This generally gives me some insights into lighting as well as useful painting techniques when I import the renders into my paint program. Little by little I pick up new tricks and techniques for my illustration […]

I often take time off from my illustration work to hone my skills with various subjects. Often these are animals — or combinations of people and animal traits. Some will likely never be used for my book illustration work (like Miz Piggy, above, inspired by a phrase from the 1944 song “Swing from a Star” […]

I recently created an illustration (above) for my portfolio — or a book or magazine illustration should someone need such a picture. Given the odd combination of figures and background, it seems unlikely it will only be employed anywhere other than in my portfolio, though it is hard to say, especially given that once in […]