Book Cover Illustrations

I recently sold “Nuked” for use as the cover on John Backus’ post-apocalyptic adventure novel Hunter – After the Fall. I created this illustration a long time ago, and it has always been a (somewhat chilling) favorite, perhaps reflecting the fears of those of us who grew up at the tail end of the Cold […]

One of Richard Thieme’s science fiction short stories “Northward into the Night” from Mind Games (published April 2010 under the Duncan Long Publications imprint) is now available for a “free read” at nycBigCityLit.com. The illustration (above) was been used in its black-and-white version to illustrate the story in the book. A color version graces the […]

I just completed the artwork for Right Hand Reign’s “Rattle of Bones” CD album cover. I “painted” thousands of skeletons during the process, a task that would have been impossible without computer automation of the task. In fact there are only 12 different “lying down” skeletons with an additional seven or eight in various states […]

Sneak preview of the cover I completed this week for R. Thomas Roe’s Palm Beach Gold. ===================== Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator and layout artist for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html =====================

Lion & Lamb Ministries has purchased limited rights to “The Serpent’s Curse” (above) for use on the cover of its Lamplighter magazine. This is a rather quirky picture that attracts lots of attention, yet is pretty limited in its potential for being employed as an actual illustration (though I believe it has been used in […]

As an illustrator, I love printed books and magazines. Nothing can match a crisp page with beautiful type inked onto its surface. Book illustrations are best in print without a doubt (though that might change in the future given a screen’s potential for higher dark/light contrast and greater color pallet). But as a reader, I […]

Issue five of Free Voices magazine came out with the illustration I did for it. The issue contains extensive excerpts of Edith Saposnik Kaplan’s book A Child’s Witness to Genocide (both the magazine and book are published by The Solomon Press). The autobiographical story follows the harrowing experiences of Kaplan (then a small child) who […]

Here’s a “sneak peek” at the cover I finished last week for Roger St. Germain’s science fiction novel Escape from Certain. The project started out pretty straightforward, but seemed to run into several unexpected problems along the way (and it is only due to the patience of the author that I eventually worked through them). […]

Before you read further, a caveat and a few facts about me: I’ve worked for several decades in the publishing industry and worn all sorts of hats, from self-publishing/direct marketing, to advertising (mostly my own publications), to author (80 some books with large publishers like HarperCollins and Avon on down to small presses you’ve likely […]

I occasionally create a book cover mock-up to “fill in the spaces” in my online portfolio and galleries. This is one such recent book cover design, based on an illustration I create about a year ago while experimenting with a technique for creating a rough, painterly effect using historic figures as a starting point. =============== […]