Book Cover Illustrations

This is the preliminary cover illustration I’ve created for Dale Allan’s upcoming mystery novel Lead Me Not Into Temptation. We tried to capture the conflict in one of the key scenes in the book, in which a priest is faced with the moral dilemma of whether to take matters into his own hands, and perhaps […]

So you’ve written your great American novel. And despite its merits, you can’t get it edged past the glut of manuscripts now flooding every major publishing house. You’re convinced your book has merit. You decide to publish. Now what? First you need to understand that you face an uphill battle when it comes to marketing […]

OK. I just did these for fun. But I’m hoping sometime each of these illustrations will find its way onto a book cover. Until then, hopefully they’ll bring a little amusement to readers of this blog as well as those who visit my online galleries. Above is “Summer Storm” and below is “Lisajen’s Top Hat.” […]

I completed the book cover illustration and lettering/layout for R. P. Tedlie’s Isabel’s Tears a few days ago. While the initial publication will be in the Kindle format (which is grayscale), we went ahead and created a hi-resolution color version so the author would be ready for traditional printing should he decide to go that […]

From the press release: The 2010 DIY Book Festival has issued a call for entries for its ninth annual program celebrating the success of independent authors and publishers. The DIY Book Festival will consider self-published or independent publisher non-fiction, fiction, biography/autobiography, children’s books, teenage, how-to, cookbooks, science fiction, audio/spoken word, photography, art, comics, ’zines, fan […]

During my career I’ve worked with and for all sorts of publishers, from the giants like HarperCollins to mid-sized operations like Paladin Press to small presses and self publishers. I even have my own “press” that puts out a title now and then. I’ve enjoyed all the work and worked with a lot of enjoyable […]

Another of the B&W book illustrations I created for Victor Thorn’s upcoming book, Reality Bomb. The illustration is titled Forsake All Hope Ye Who Enter Here — with the phrase appearing in tiny print on one of the windows as well. ===================== Duncan Long is a freelance book illustrator who has done work for HarperCollins, […]

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 […]

Many illustrators start with pencil sketches that are scanned and then used in a digital environment to be fleshed out for the final book illustration. Back in days of yore, I loved working with pencils. Today I find it much faster to start with the digital tablet (Wacom) rather than pad and pencil, entering the […]

A B&W variation of the illustration from two posts ago — and the last of this group for those who are getting bored. Often adapting color illustrations to B&W makes it possible to illustrate the inner pages of a novel or other book without the added expense involved in producing colored pictures. I find that […]