Book Cover Illustrations

Over the last month (off and on), I’ve been creating illustrations for Stephen Quayle’s upcoming book Xenogenesis. The book gives a rather chilling look at some of the possible futures today’s technology may be bringing us, and I’ve tried to reflect that in the artwork. Among the subjects: Artificial intelligence machines, thinking military robots, dream-like virtual realities, and run-away genetic engineering.

Yes, nightmare stuff that hopefully I’ve captured in some of the artwork.

And so… Without further ado:

“Cyborg Recharging”

“Transhuman”

“What Is Man?”

” Baby Farm”

“Techno-Antichrist”

“Artificial Intelligence Robot”

“Robotic Monster”

“Virtual Venice”

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Duncan Long is a writer/illustrator who has created book covers for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, ILEX, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Moonstone Books, Amazing Stories, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. See his book and magazine cover illustration at: Duncan Long’s Illustration Portfolio.

There are some informative (and free) online lectures (via YouTube) about writing fiction… They focus on SF and fantasy — but there are a lot of good tips that apply to all writing as well.

You can access the collection here: Write About Dragons.

Potential readers do judge a book by its cover. It is a cliche — but true. If you want to sell books, you must have a quality book cover illustration or layout for it.

It’s that simple.

Today, I discovered a blogger who summed up this truth very concisely:

EVERYONE judges a book by its cover… Everyone.  Anyone who says they don’t is LYING to you.  When was the last time you looked at a book with a really bad cover and immediately bought it because you couldn’t wait to dig in? That’s right – NEVER.  Humans are visual creatures, people.  We need to be dazzled.  We need to be stimulated to be interested.  We like the sparkly things!  Putting a bad cover on a good book will absolutely ruin its chances of ever being successful.   Books don’t have the luxury of winning you over with their personality first.  It’s all about looks. — J. M. Gregoire

(You can read Gregoire’s whole article here: An Open Letter to Indie Authors.)

I suspect I may be attracted to a nice book cover more than many readers — after all I earn my living now in large part by illustrating book covers. However I don’t think I’m too different.

I have purchased books with great covers that proved so-so; I’ve never bought a great book with a so-so cover. The only exception is with big name authors I was familiar with — and even then the version of the book with a better cover wins out.

When a publisher (whether a large press or self-publishing author) doesn’t think enough of their book to give it a quality cover, that sends a message. Most of us have learned that more often than not, a cheap-looking cover is wrapped around a book no one thinks will sell well, and which may be poorly written and edited to boot.

Book cover quality is the new “gatekeeper.” It helps us decide at a glance whether the book has potential merit or not.

If you want to sell your book, be sure it has a quality cover. Otherwise your ship will sink before it leaves of the harbor.

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Duncan Long is a book illustrator who’s created cover artwork for HarperCollins, Amazing Stories, Pocket Books, ILEX, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Moonstone Books, and many indie presses and self-publishing authors. See more of his cover illustrations at Duncan Long’s Gallery of Book Cover Artwork

And remember, only two more months of dating your checks “2013.”

You can download the Kindle version of bestselling author Douglas E. Richards’ The Devil’s Sword for free today (Friday Dec. 27th) and tomorrow at Amazon. The book also sports one of my favor cover projects.

For a detailed look at how we created the cover for this action-adventure novel, take a look at “The Making of the The Devil’s Sword Cover.”

For those wanting prints of my science fiction and fantasy artwork, I’ve put together a “portfolio” collection of my “Best of 2013” together. There are 28 prints in full color in an 8.5×11-inch format.

You can order via Amazon; for those in the US: The Illustrations of Duncan Long 2013.

Here’s a sneak peek of the contents:

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Duncan Long is a book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, ILEX, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Moonstone Books, Amazing Stories, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. See his online gallery of Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustration.

Two years ago, I created the illustration for the “Christmas” cover for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. That was pretty exciting but it was one battle to get the cover right. Part of the problem was the colors selected for the cover: The traditional red/green for the Christmas issue. Red and green sort of war with each other; put a red dot over a green background and it sort of “floats” over the green.

And try to blend red and green and you have a hideous dark mess. So creating red/green gradients required for this cover artwork required a lot of “cheating,” agony, and consulting of entrails to make it look like it was actually happening, even though it’s impossible with ink and print.

My other problem (really a mistake) was monkeying with the perspective. I wanted to create a dizzying effect of looking at high buildings, bright lights, and dancers. So I skewed the perspectives so nothing really matches up properly. But instead of getting a dizzying effect, to my eye at least two years later, it looks incredibly amateurish. If I had that to do over… Yes, that “if factor.”

Anyway, here’s the final magazine illustration I sent to Asimov’s art director.

Oh, to have worked with blue and green or blue and red instead of red and green. Blue would have blended. But alas… That said, the original sketch I submitted to the art director was blue — possibly a last ditch effort to convince her that blue might be an option.

It was not (ha).

Those with an astute eye will realize that like Dr. Who‘s Cybermen and Star Wars‘ C3PO, my robots for the Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine cover were greatly influenced by Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie Metropolis. That expressionist science-fiction film was way ahead of its time, and seems to have set the design standards in the SF community for the next 100 years.

Unlike the movie robot, my design had high heels — dictated by the story. (Truth be known, I prefer robots without high heels — that type of shoe is tough to draw from various perspectives.)

The story the illustration was for… “All About Emily” by Connie Willis. And
what a fine story it is. You can read it online at Asimov’s web site.

Nor was that the only fantastic story in that issue. Looking through the index, you’ll discover a lot of greats:

NOVELETTES:
Surf by Suzanne Palmer
Strawberry Birdies by Pamela Sargent
Ephemera by Steve Rasnic Tem

SHORT STORIES
“The List” by Tim McDaniel
“The Countable” by Ken Liu
“’Run,’ Bakri Says” by Ferrett Steinmetz

With editorials by Sheila Williams, Robert Silverberg, and James Gunn

It was a great Asimov’s issue to be a part of. Even with its red and green front cover colors.

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Duncan Long has worked in the publishing industry for over three decades, creating over a thousand illustrations for book and magazine publishers including HarperCollins, Amazing Stories, Pocket Books, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, American Media, Ilex Press, Moonstone Books, Enslow Publishers, and many small presses and self-publishing authors. He was also selected by the US Collaborative Summer Library Program as a featured illustrator for 2013. See more of his artwork at Duncan Long’s Online Gallery.

I’m happy to announce that Martha Fawcett’s novel Dance of the Warrior and Witch is now available in paperback format and Kindle.

If you like science fiction, you’re going to enjoy this novel. Here’s a blurb:

What are the cosmic forces that draw people together? Is it a karmic dance of yin and yang? Or, is it the yearning within each soul that longs to heal the ills of the past?

When the Gathosian beauty, Iosobell, joins the order of Trinity Witches, her psychic skills astound her tutor, Sister Viobella.

Four years later, mentors and peers alike assume that Iosobell will continue her studies on New Delphi and become a high priestess; however, she shocks everyone and accepts a modest position as a music teacher on the small, Headwater planet of Sutcay Tay. Élan is 15 years old when he first kneels before the Shardasko master, Kyron, and begs for acceptance into the Sutcay Tay School.

Intrigued with the possibilities of mentoring a Human, Kyron accepts Élan as a neophyte. Now, Élan is 22 years old and prepared to undergo the final life-and-death test of a Shardasko warrior, the quarrying. When Élan and Iosobell meet, the skills of a warrior and the cunning of a witch will join forces in an attempt to alter the course of reality.

The ramifications of their encounter are so enormous that even these two advanced beings cannot predict what the final outcome may be.

This is the third book cover I’ve created for Fawcett. The first cover I did was for Together (book two of the Janaforma trilogy) which is also available form Amazon.com in print and kindle formats.

Finally, I also created the cover for Fawcett’s third book in the Janaforma trilogy, One. And it’s also available in print and Kindle formats.

There’s a lot of good reading in each these books. If you’re a science fiction fan, be sure to read the free previews of the stories at Amazon. And be prepared to be hooked!

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Duncan Long is a science fiction book cover artist. See more of his illustrations in his Science Fiction Artwork Gallery.

The Amazing Stories Magazine, T-shirts are now available. And they make the perfect gift for science fiction fans — including gifts to yourself if you’re one such person, of course. And, yes, that’s my rocket on the front.

To buy a T-shirt you’ll need to sign up for a free membership  (no strings attached — the editor is trying to gain a following to help finance moving the magazine to print). Then you can order a shirt.

The only catch is that the run of the black background T-shirts is limited to 150, so they’re being sold on a first come/ first served basis.

Here’s the link to find out more about the Amazing Stories T-shirts.

Here’s my original illustration that’s being used for the T-shirt:

As you can see, the Earth and space station were removed to make the T-shirt design a bit more dramatic. Also the ship was “flipped” and given some Amazing Stories insignia to make it “official.”

The original idea was to create a rocket ship that was a throwback to the 1950s era of science fiction. So imagine our surprise when we saw a mockup a few weeks later of a jet/rocket craft that a British company was developing that appears very similar to this design, though with a much longer body. Sometimes reality imitates art, and vice versa.

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When not designing T-shirt artwork for Amazing Stories, Duncan Long acts as the magazine’s art director. Long also creates a variety of science fiction, fantasy, and horror artwork for the covers of books and magazines. You can explore his artwork at Duncan Long’s Online Galleries.

Here are several illustrations I’ve completed the last few days (and soon to go to my Premade Science Fiction Book Cover Artwork site).

The one below is a retro-rocket ship, similar to the rocket logo that often graced the spine of science fiction novels in many public libraries when I was a kid — so these retro “rocket ships” have always had a special place for me.

This retro-rocket actually started in the lower left corner of another illustration I did (below — in red and yellow).

Since I work at a higher resolution and larger size than will be needed for book covers, cropping a section of an illustration from the main picture and then altering the colors a bit makes it possible sometimes to have a secondary piece of artwork from an original.

This retro rocket design eventually made its way over to Amazing Stories. There my similar retro-rocket (in the image below) eventually was selected by Steve Davidson who is the editor of Amazing Stories for the revamped magazines’ first official T-shirt. (The T-shirt version of the picture is sans Earth and 1960s’ style space station.)

Of course it almost goes without saying that a retro science fiction collection of illustrations must include a UFO, so the third picture I completed yesterday just about had to have a flying saucer in it, right?

It is interesting that our own space flight has opened up the idea that nighttime cities can be viewed from space. Thus a picture like the one above can be recognized by most viewers as a very populated planet — something that would not likely have been the case back in the 1950s-1960s. Which is how it should be: Good science should always influence science fiction writing and artwork.

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When not drawing and painting UFOs and retro-rocketships, Duncan Long works as a writer/illustrator. You can see more of his science fiction artwork at Duncan Long’s Science Fiction Art Gallery.