Book Cover Illustrations

I just completed the artwork on book two in the The Adventures of Dod series of YA fantasy novels written by Thomas R. Williams. Like the first book, one of the key features in this illustration was the glowing sword; this time the weapon is held in the hands of a mysterious, hooded figure.

The process of creating this book cover illustration started with something akin to beating our plowshares into swords; I used my painting of a monk holding a crucifix as the jumping off point for this new picture, giving the character in this new picture a smooth-shaven chin (which is barely visible) and exchanging the cross for a sword which had some extra glistening and glow added to it once it was in place.

The sword in the story is made of a crimson metal, so it was necessary to add some reddish glow to the blade; this turned out to be a little tricky since too much red appeared to be poorly painted blood on the blade — not the look the publisher was wanting. So we ended adding more glow and less red to the picture to give it a suitable appearance.

The publisher again needed a wrap-around cover, so I painted a second similar archway for the back (shown on the left, below). A potted plant was in the scenery within the story, so that got added to fill the space in the archway. Finally, new stonework was painted into the center to provide a more neutral background for the spine lettering. And like much of the other stonework throughout this piece, was created with an eye toward an uneven, hand-built look for the masonry.

And with minor adjustments here and there, the cover was pretty much completed.

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Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator. You can see more of his book cover illustrations at Duncan’s Portfolio.
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