Book Cover Illustrations

I’ve become a publishing “old timer.” Over the years, I have played on both sides of the publishing street, starting as a small publisher in the 1980s (using a fine-dot, dot matrix to print up copy for the books, no less) which I marketed by magazine ads. This went well and laid the ground work […]

Second opinions can be good. They can also be disastrous. When it comes to second opinions, sometimes an illustrator’s clients can be the client’s own worse enemies. That’s the reason I always shudder when I hear a client start a statement with, “I asked my [son, secretary, neighbor] what they thought about the book illustration […]

Sneak preview of the cover I completed this week for R. Thomas Roe’s Palm Beach Gold. ===================== Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator and layout artist for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html =====================

I occasionally create a book cover mock-up to “fill in the spaces” in my online portfolio and galleries. This is one such recent book cover design, based on an illustration I create about a year ago while experimenting with a technique for creating a rough, painterly effect using historic figures as a starting point. =============== […]

It’s usually easy to visualize what a book cover illustration should look like. And going into a project it’s always good to have an idea of what the outcome should be. Otherwise, like someone lost in the wilderness, you go in circles without positive results. However when followed too closely, a concept for an illustration […]

A recent illustration (as of yet, without a home) created as a pseudo myth: The Great Father Paints the Sky and Stars. I painted the silhouette of a Native American medicine man as the Great Father and then created a starry sky (somewhat as what might be seen in deep space). I think this conjunction […]

Back in the Dark Ages when I got into the publishing business as a writer/illustrator (here’s a list of the books I put into print), a writer with any talent could send in a manuscript plunked out on a manual typewriter, full of corrections, mistakes, and perhaps bread crumbs, and stand a good chance of […]

I recently had a student artist ask about the basic information needed to create a book cover illustration. The answer isn’t quite as simple as it might appear to be on the surface. There’s a lot that can go wrong in the process of creating a cover. The basics I need to know: cover size, […]

Over the last 24 hours I’ve been contacted several times by illustrators just starting in the illustration business asking me for tips for beginners. So here’s another blog with a few tips for intrepid book cover illustrators, with the caveat that my guidance is akin to the blind leading the blind: 1) Keep on keeping […]

Another illustration that does not yet have a home… Needless to say, all book cover, magazine, CD, poster, and other rights are available for this illustration (on a first-come, first-served basis). Art critics and teachers often claim that good artwork should avoid being symmetrical and that off-balanced pictures are more interesting to the eye. I […]