Book Cover Illustrations

I just got word that Joan C. Wrenn’s Unsung Lord of Siyah Chan: A Novel of the Ancient Maya is now in print (from Outskirts Press). This is the fourth book in Wrenn’s series about ancient Maya culture.

Like the previous novel that I painted the cover illustration for, this offered a unique challenge in that the author wanted a picture to reflect the Mayan viewpoint of the world, and to also mimic the “flat” look of Mayan artwork. So the challenge was to capture both the look of ancient Mayan art while giving it some depth and realism so it would still work for a modern reader.

The author supplied pictures of Mayan glyphs which included figures similar to those in her story. Mayan artwork is somewhat stylized, and gives “cues” as to whether fabric is fur or cloth, metal, etc. Colors haven’t survived in most Mayan artwork, so educated guesses had to be made. The results worked well and the addition of a jungle, background glyphs, and some torchlight helped pull everything together.

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Duncan Long is a freelance illustrator whose work has appeared on book covers from HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Outskirts Press, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other presses — and self-publishing authors. See his book cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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