Book Cover Illustrations

Portal #2-C

I normally create realistic illustrations for my clients to employ as book cover artwork, CD covers, and so forth. But recently a writer contacted me and asked if I had any abstract pictures that might serve as cover artwork for his book.

My answer, “Yes, if I can locate them on my hard drive.”

I eventually did find them, and I thought I’d share them here since they’re rare birds among the work I’ve done. The original picture was titled “Portal Into Consciousness” (or simply “Portal”) but soon became a group of pictures as I work and reworked various ideas built about the original concept.

The basic seed for all this was built from a 3D disk I created using zBrush. This object was then rendered with a glass surface with lights shining on it. The resulting JPG that was then further modified in my “paint program” of choice PhotoPaint. I eventually had a number of variations built around this basic idea.

My favorites from the Portal series are shown above and below.

I have discovered there’s a fine, and somewhat odd, line between abstract and realistic. For example, I used one of these Portal pictures as a background with a figure standing in front of it for an illustration in my book Witches and Fish. Thus, the abstract painting became part of a realistic illustration, and actually fit in quite well.

Arguably, in an age when science fiction and fantasy stories teach us to expect unusual sights and accept them as “real,” the line between abstract and realistic becomes quite flexible.

Portal #3

Portal #3-B

Portal #3-C "Gold"

Portal #6-B

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Normally Duncan Long creates realistic illustrations for cover and inner artwork for magazines and books. His artwork has appeared in publications from HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, ILEX, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Sun tabloid, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. See more of Duncan’s illustrations at: Duncan’s Book Illustration Portfolio
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