Book Cover Illustrations

I just completed the book cover illustration for Dora Machado’s Stonewiser III, available from Mermaid Press later this year (or possibly early 2011). Machado’s first two book (which I also had the pleasure of creating book cover illustrations for) have garnered a number of awards, and everyone’s hopeful for this third book in the trilogy.

And the success of the first two books was all the more reason to be happy when the publisher asked me to do this third book cover illustration.

But…

The illustration proved a bear to get right and I nearly threw in the towel a couple of time. It was only thanks to the persistence (and patience) of Mermaid Press head honcho Bryan T. Marshall that the project got completed. Every time things hit a snag, Marshall shepherded the picture along making suggestions and suggesting different routes, feeding me pictures and suggestions along the way. He did just about everything but hold the temperamental artist’s hand.

Thanks to his efforts we eventually got to the finish line with a beautiful book cover illustration that I’m proud to have done.

Most book and magazine illustrations go quickly and smoothly. When snags occur, it’s good to be working for someone like Marshall who understands and pushes forward when a lesser person would quit.

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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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