Book Cover Illustrations

Second opinions can be good. They can also be disastrous. When it comes to second opinions, sometimes an illustrator’s clients can be the client’s own worse enemies. That’s the reason I always shudder when I hear a client start a statement with, “I asked my [son, secretary, neighbor] what they thought about the book illustration […]

I had the pleasure of hearing from Victor Thorn (talk show host, reporter, and writer). He wanted to use 32 of my pictures in his upcoming book, Reality Bomb. I was happy to see so many of my illustrations getting exposure in his upcoming book (and a little cash in the exchange didn’t hurt anything, […]

From time to time I get questions from self-publishing authors about books and ISBNs, so I thought I might address it here in my blog. The ISBN ( International Standard Book Number) was created so that books could be easily identified through computer systems worldwide. Originally made with a 10-digit number, it was later changed […]

The last couple of weeks a number of my books (and those of many other authors) have been appearing at a variety of pirate sites. Nothing new here, but still troubling given that I never see a penny from such downloads — and it is possible to see declining sales that parallel the downloading of […]

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 […]