Book Cover Illustrations

I just got word that Al Philipson’s Last Train from Earth: Holy Christian Empire – 2206 is now available for preorder.

OK… I know I’m a little biased — but I love this cover. It has to be one of my favorites.

My original illustration is shown above.

I did a little cheating when creating this artwork, cutting a standard spaceship painting (I’d done “for fun”) apart, and assembling/creating a section of it for a train car. Yes, that’s the great thing about painting digitally. I then duplicated the section in PhotoPaint seven more times to create a string of eight cars. If you look closely, you’ll see they’re an enlarged version of the section of the spaceship between the headlights.

After duplicating these “train cars,” I then painted details over each one, making slight variations from one to the next so they no longer looked like perfect duplicates. Such small differences are perceived by the eye/brain as different things, which is important for creating the illusion of actual man-made objects. And detailing a ship also helps create the illusion of size. The small “shuttle” was also added to give a clue that this ship is massive.

Here’s a detail shot of the final cover painting:

The publisher added the lettering for the cover (shown below), to complete things.

And the book cover was ready to go on its ebook version.

You’ll have to admit, I’ve come a way since I played with my ‎Lionel model train set of my youth. Plus there’s no whiff of oil and ionized air.

Last Train from Earth: Holy Christian Empire – 2206 is now available on preorder at Amazon.

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Book illustrator Duncan Long has created cover artwork for HarperCollins, Pocket Books, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. You can see more of his illustrations in his Book Cover Art Portfolio.