Cover Design

THE FICTIONAL MAN

by Al Ewing

First off: this is a fabulous book, go and read it. I hope I've done it justice with this cover, because it really is one of the best things Solaris have published. In the book, characters from novels can be programmed into clone bodies to act in TV shows and Hollywood movies, so for the cover I decided to make a face from words and sentences, and Al sent me passage of text from the story to use for this purpose. I like the weird way the sentences form new ones as they run alongside each other. My workmates were particularly amused by the 'I Hate Drawing' that appears above the right eyebrow (complete accident, and untrue). This has also got to be the first piece of art I've done that required proof-reading...

For once my rough looked quite close to the final version...

Aside from the colours, the back cover and spine layout for the US version are very similar to the UK one, but the American sales team/buyers weren't taken with the crop (or much else) on the original mockup. Initially I just extended the drawing out further than I intended and added Al's name into the face, but i felt in lost some of the impact from the UK one, so decided to just do a more traditional book title design, using the art as a design element rather than the whole cover. Below are some of the many colour options I came up with to try and placate them to start with. I like the repetition in this - it makes it looks quite surreal...

For more information on The Fictional Man click here
To buy a copy go here (Amazon)

DRAG HUNT

by Pat Kelleher

Not much to say about this one as it was really quick to do. It's an ebook only novella, bizarrely about the native american trickster god Coyote and the hunt for his missing penis, which usually resides in a bag around his neck (yep!). After knocking a few ideas around I came up with this ridiculously phallic totem pole made up of imagery from the story, hoping Pat would see the funny side of it and not think I was taking the piss out of his book! Happily he thought it was pretty funny too, and suggested a ton of cool stuff to add in.
The roulette wheels on either side got removed in the name of good taste, but I've included them here because, frankly, I'm juvenile. Pointless fact: the Saxon runes at the bottom say PYE.

Buy a copy here (Amazon Kindle edition)

BLOOD AND FEATHERS: REBELLION

by Lou Morgan

This is the second book in the series by Lou and as ever she's ace to work with. Ridiculously enthusiastic, full of ideas for inspiration, but quite happy for me to try whatever I think might look good on the covers. I'm really pleased with this, especially as an evolution and improvment of the design from the first book, so it still matches the style but without me having to tread old ground.

Ink drawings used in the final art.

To find out more about Blood and Feathers click here, and to buy a copy of Rebellion, click here!

As a final link, here's an interview I gave last year about the creation of the cover art for the first Blood and Feathers book on shewolfreads

CRASH

by Guy Haley

I love painting space. It was nice to add in some graphics this time too, although the numbers (representing stocks and shares) were a complete nightmare to do - I sat for an hour or so typing about 800 descending random 4 digit sequences, without causing weird repetitions and stuff. Try it (or don't actually), it fries your mind...

The rough layout was a joint idea by Sam Howle and me. This was done waaay in advance for a catalogue, so by the time it came to put the book together I just re-did the whole thing.

Below is this final cover design.

Buy a copy of Crash here.

LIFE ON THE PRESERVATION

by Jack Skillingstead

This is the cover for the UK edition, the US one having been done by the excellent Vincent Chong. So as not to compete with Vinny's I went as graphic as possible for this cover. Below are some of my rough mockups, some of which taking the idea of living inside a preservation dome a bit more literally than others. I'm glad this version was chosen too, the others where probably a bit obvious.

Buy a copy of Life on the Preservation here (Amazon)

No Man's World: The Alleyman

Cover art for The Alleyman by Pat Kelleher, out in August from Abaddon Books. I painted the top half about 4 months ago, then had to leave it for ages. I only got time to finish the bottom part last week.
The plane is a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, which I finished separately then added in. Hopefully we'll get it printed up as a promotional postcard or something nearer the book's release date, as I think it looks cool on it's own.

Above is the final art, and below the rough stages of painting.

Tomes of the Dead: Bad Blood

Bad Blood is an ebook novella by Chuck Wendig, which follows on from his previous Abaddon book Double Dead. Originally the cover was gonna be quite different (similar to the Double Dead cover), but I had to get something put together as a placeholder image for the 2012 catalogue, which I always intended to go back to later. In end everyone thought this was so striking we left it as it was.

Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Trilogy

Design-led cover for the Omnibus of Abaddon's Twilight of Kerberos series. Collecting the 3 books written by Matthew Sprange

No Man's World: The Ironclad Prophecy

Finally sent this to press this afternoon, after starting the cover art for the Abaddon 2011 catalogue several months ago. Earlier this week I updated the landscape along the bottom based on a cool scene in the book suggested by Pat Kelleher. I also added some gassy nebula stuff up the one side, blood on the goggles and various other little bits and bobs.

I'm glad I finally got to the deadline on this - I'd have kept endlessly changing it otherwise!

Cover art without text is below, plus the design for the front and back cover of the book and some sketches I drew when designing the Stone Beetle and Jabberwock.

The back cover image is the spacey stuff from the cover, rearranged with all the other elements removed. The Jabberwork ended up being quite small on the cover, and I changed it's body shape anyway, but I still think this sketch of it's head is pretty cool.

Recent Cover Work

I don't seem to have finished anything for ages, but last week the Solaris and Abaddon 2011 catalogue went to press which gave me the kick up the arse I needed to finish a load of covers I've had half finished weeks. Most of these still aren't done 100% finished but they're all getting there.

No Man's World: The Ironclad Prophecy

This is the second book in the No Man's World series by Pat Kelleher. I hadn't even started this til a few days ago so I had to steal a few bits old art to make it look complete. The red landscape at the bottom of the image is the same as book 1 which I'll have to update later but everything else is pretty much there. Despite the hastiness I'm really pleased with it at the moment!

Malory's Knights of Albion

These are covers for the first 2 books in the series. Like the Ironclad cover above I only had a day or two to put The Savage Knight together last week, and I'm very happy with it. This is the only cover here that's totally finished. Book 1, The Black Chalice was a bit more painful. It looks ok now, but I've been mucking around with it for weeks, and I think it's going to end up getting dropped and changed now anyway, mainly due to the strength of the book 2 art. This is fine by me as I spent so long shopping and changing the art I've no idea what to think of it anymore. Book 2 is miles better, so Book 1 needs to be just as good. I 've already started the replacement and its working much better already.

Solaris Rising

Last up is the cover for a new SF anthology from Solaris. Above is the rough mockup for the cover (I might change the text layout) and below that the whole image. I want to scene to wrap around the front onto the spine and back page in the end. This is another cover thats occasionally been a bit difficult. I've really enjoyed doing all the fancy glowing planets and space gas but what's held this cover up is a shuttle I wanted to the foreground. I must have designed and rejected 30 ships and still haven't done one I'm happy with. Now that the backgrounds pretty much done though I'm starting to think it might not even need it, or at least not as big as I first imagined.