Book Cover Illustrations

You’ve got a great book idea. You’ve got your manuscript finished and polished (and if it isn’t near perfect, stop reading now and come back when your manuscript is as close to flawless as is humanly possible for you to make it). Now what? How do you get that manuscript into print? Right at the […]

I enjoyed a nice interview at Artsy Shark. The site has some fantastic information for illustrators as well as those interested in book publishing as well as the process of book illustration. Now to get over my inflated head. ==================== When not being interviewed, Duncan Long works as a freelance book illustrator. He has done […]

It isn’t rare to read a book and discover that the cover illustration didn’t have much to do with the story. One reason for this is that with many publishers cutting back with their budgets, cover artwork often suffers either in how well it is done (you do get what you pay for) or in […]

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 […]

I have no complaint about the vast majority of my clients — with perhaps three exceptions over a decade or so. And these few bad eggs had song-and-dance routines shown in this video (below). For the rest of my customers (past and future), I hope you can enjoy a few laughs. For my fellow illustrators, […]

Leonardo da Vinci once noted that “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” In the digital age, that might be modified to, “Art is never finished, only stored forever.” Or maybe not. At any rate, this is one of my digital paintings that seems never to have been finished. It started as an exercise in creating […]

One of the more important parts of being an illustrator is displaying your work (and hopefully enticing someone to buy it). When it comes to displaying artwork at web sites, things aren’t quite as clear cut as they might seem. Sadly there are many beautiful sites on the web that are plagued by problems that […]

A few more black and white drawings. These were produced for the second edition of Wrong Side In. ================== Duncan Long is a freelance illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Ballistic Publishing, American Media, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. See more of his work including book cover illustrations at: DuncanLong.com […]

Robert Frost wrote the beautiful “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Back in the dark ages of my grade school learning, our sixth grade teacher had us memorize that poem. What a nice gift to give young learners. That poem has brought me joy through the years, and a tear or two as […]

The mind often tries to see faces where none are: The man in the moon being a prime example. I can remember as a child walking homeward on a crisp autumn evening and being asked by my mom if I could see a face in the rising full moon. I sure could after that question. […]