Book Cover Illustrations

Over the weekend I had a short discussion with a friend about how very often a movie, article, or book can be improved by lopping off the first few paragraphs, pages, or minutes of film (depending on the medium). This is an old trick professional editors often employ to jump start an otherwise worthy creation. […]

On weekends I sometimes paint a “just for fun” piece that hopefully will be sold down the road. Here’s one of these, this one with a science fiction flavor with a nod toward the Garden of Eden. I’ve titled this illustration “Eve at Empire’s End.” ===================== Duncan Long loves to create book illustrations and even […]

Editor Cheryl Morgan chose my illustration “Forgotten Temple on a Lost Planet” for the April cover of Salon Futura, an online (and free) science fiction magazine. Here’s the original illustration which was (obviously) too wide for the magazine cover: The star field of this illustration was originally created for another project but never used; on […]

I received an autographed copy of Dora Machado’s Stonewiser III: The Lament of the Stone, now available from Mermaid Press. This is the third book in the series (and I also had the honor of creating the book cover illustrations for those as well). The first two books garnered several publishing awards, and I suspect […]

Here’s the final book cover layout for R. Thomas Roe’s upcoming action-adventure novel Searching for America. (You can check my previous two blog posts for more about the book cover illustration.) I added an AK-47 icon for the spine and basically to fill space in the layout above the book publisher’s address. (And, yes, fellow […]

This is the polished book cover illustration for R. Thomas Roe’s action-adventure novel Searching for America. We’re rounding up the text for the back cover and its pretty much laid out (being proofed as I type this). Will post the front/spine/back cover when it is finalized… Readers can find more of my cover illustrations for […]

The growing number of self-published authors and small presses has been fretted over by many in the publishing industry. Their fear/argument has been that in the past big publishers acted as gatekeepers to preserve the quality of books. They rejected poorly written work and maintained the quality of books being produced — so the argument […]

This is a very early digital illustration I created, and one that demonstrated to me the potential of digital artwork. As such it became one of those roadway signs that sent me down a highway that might otherwise have remained undiscovered. It’s odd how the picture of barbed wire and a defiant fist present a […]

John Chadwell got an interesting interview and write up about our upcoming graphic novel The Werewolves of New Idria in the Hollister Freelance newspaper. The twist here is that the paper is close to New Idria where the final climatic scene is set. Hopefully the locals don’t get too spooked by the story :o) ===================== […]

Received this photo of a jolly John Chadwell standing in front of the book cover and graphic novel cover I created for him. And, yes, that’s his Facebook page showing there on the monitor at the lower right. John has a lot to smile about. His scripts for both stories are now making the rounds […]