Book Cover Illustrations

I came into the magazine and book illustration business through the back door, first working as a writer/illustrator, creating drawings of things that couldn’t be easily photographed as well as the artwork for black and white advertisements for the books I sold through my own mail order company.

Eventually I was selling writing and illustrating books for other publishers and closed down my mail order operation so I could devote my full time to creating books. But I still illustrated with pen and ink for many years.

Then one day things changed.

I tried creating a couple of book illustrations using a computer rather than pen and ink. This was followed by an “Aha” moment when an editor mistook my drawings for photos. “How in the world did you get photos of that?” he asked.

I explained they were drawings. He thought I was joking at first.

Now my pen-and-ink work was passable. But no one had ever mistook my drawings for photos. So from that moment, I was hooked on creating illustrations digitally, and basically never looked back, boxing up my drawing pens, ink, various templates, French curve, and T-square, never to use them again. My drafting table soon was collecting dust in the basement, a Wacom tablet taking its place.

My switch to digital drawings was one of those pivotal moments that eventually led to a variety of book illustration jobs and techniques.

Not only were the results more realistic (when needed), they were also faster. Where I was looking to do two major drawings in a day, I could now do six or more in the same time, and with less wear and tear to my body since I was no longer hunched over the drafting table.

And don’t even get me started on how handy the undo command is when creating a book illustration.
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See more of my digital drawings for magazine and book illustration work at: Duncan Long’s B&W Digital Drawings and Paintings