Christian Book Cover Illustration - artwork by illustrator Duncan Long

I’m currently working on a book cover illustration for author James Johnson. There are some real challenges in this since the light for the returning Christ needs to be ultra-bright — yet we still need to be able to see details in his face and figure as well as hints of a Heavenly army behind Him.

Obviously that’s next to (if not) impossible to do with the light from a monitor (and even less so when it goes into print where the light is being reflected from paint and paper). So the trick is to create the illusion of brightness. Getting it just right isn’t easy.

On the flip side, painting the clouds into darkness has proven to be a fun task, and one can only imagine how the light and formations would turn out since this vision doesn’t employ the normal displacement of clouds and light.

Finally, the world in darkness needs to be portrayed on the ground, making the perspective convoluted if done according to the rules. So rather than fooling with the perspective, I’ve reverted to the mind set of the Middle Ages when art allowed size and perspective to be fluid and inaccurate. Hopefully this will work as well in this project as it did back when.

In the end, the book cover illustration may be different from this version, but I felt it was interesting enough at this point to post.

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Duncan Long is a freelance book illustrator. Most of his clients treat him very well and he has few complaints. See his book illustrations at: http://duncanlong.com/art.html
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