Book Cover Illustrations

When I stared creating the illustrations for the graphic novel The Werewolves of New Idria, we knew the final page count and approximately how many illustrations I’d need to create for John Chadwell’s story. That said, there’s always a little “wheel spinning” with an art project like this, so a few pieces were created that […]

Normally the summer is a slow time for publishing. But with many authors now going the self-publishing route, this summer is proving to be an exception – busy, busy, busy. Which is just how I like it because I love my work — and there’s always a need for a little more money, right? This […]

Self publishing authors and indie press operators often wonder what the illustration rates paid by big publishers of books and magazines are. Fortunately the answer to that question isn’t a big dark secret these days. In fact the industry rates for magazine and book illustrators are pretty standard (and sadly have not gone up much […]

Here’s a nice interview with my favorite book cover illustrator (me, of course): Portrait of a Book Illustrator: Duncan Long Arguably I’m a bit wordy… Sue Bursztynski only asked four questions, and I spun out the answers to the point that it formed her entire column. Of course you can see more of my book […]

A society’s morbid fascination with zombies can be interesting — if not horrifying. And like the subconscious worries that generated stories about alien invaders and “pod people” during the Cold War era, it’s very possible that today’s popularity of zombie stories reflects a subconscious fear of the foreign invader, illegal aliens, and similar problems of […]

Have just added the finishing touches on the cover illustration for the third book in Paul B. Thompson’s Brightstone Saga being marketed by Enslow Publishers. The process was a tad convoluted (and I’ll not bombard viewers with the many variations produced). We had a series of ideas. Originally the concept was to have a werewolf […]

Got word from author Anthony DeCosmo: Just wanted to let you know that Opposing Force 1: The God Particle is now up and available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the Kindle and Nook. The cover work you did on this project was outstanding. You can read more about the process we went through […]

Yes, another biased look at some of my book cover designs. And, again, I’ve laid them out on their own page so they can appear at larger sizes on the page without a need to click through to each one. You can explore them here: book cover layouts and designs. Each cover design works (I […]

Over the last few months, I’ve been creating more “terrorist” covers and recently terrorists with nuclear devices. Arguably this is the ultimate nightmare of our age, only exceeded in the destructive potential of an all-out nuclear exchange or our planet being struck by a large asteroid. I suppose part of the fiction writer’s job is […]

Many artists and writers are big fans of Carl Jung, in large part because he’s the champion of the hidden dark recesses of the human mind — places where many creative people find themselves in when working on plots, sketches, or other ideas. I’m one of those artists. So when I had a chance to […]