Book Cover Illustrations

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).

I had done tattoos in the past and had the technique worked out. The catch was that the tattoos in this case needed to cover most of the character’s body. When my “first draft” of the concept was finished, it looked like the character was wearing a gaudy blouse rather than having tattooed skin.

Eventually I settled on a way to make the tattoos look more realistic (show more skin between inked areas). Then getting the right pictures into place — each had to deal with plot elements — became a task.

An extra bit of fun: Got to create an “evil clown” face (on her right arm). I had always wanted to do a cover with an evil clown; this one gave me the chance (albeit, a face that is somewhat hidden from casual view).

Finally, the ghostly face on the left was a problem, mostly because it started on the right of the scene where a reader’s eyes tended to gravitate. It turned out this fix was simple; flipping the picture horizontally made all the difference.

This was a fun book cover to create, but turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. I guess that’s what keeps the book cover illustration business interesting. Now I want to read the entire science fiction novel; the little I have read from it suggests it will be a terrific story.
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Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator 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
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