“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
Aristotle
I wanted to update you on my progress in developing cover art for The Sangreal, book 3 in my young adult fantasy series – The Maqlû.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about my strategy for book 3’s cover art, including the historical place in the book, the magical object, which ghost to include, and several other key elements to the story. I had given:
- A hand-drawn picture of the layout to help my cover artist visualize my concept.
- Pictures of the critical parts of the cover, including the historical place, the magical object, a train, an image of a wormhole, and a dragon.
About a week after I sent that concept information to my cover artist, Rebecacovers, I got back a very rough black and white first cut of the cover. It looked like someone had cut and pasted the images I’d sent. If I hadn’t been through this process before, I’d have been very disappointed with the quality of the work. But I’d told my artist (Rebecca) I wasn’t sure if combining space, ghosts, buildings, and dragons could work. So, it made sense not to put much effort into the first cut if it wasn’t what I wanted.
Overall, I think it’ll work. I’m still uncertain about it, but I’ve been like that with every cover so far.
The main feedback I gave her on the first cut was on the building – the Plaza de España in Seville. I told her:
- To include more of the sky, courtyard, canal, and water fountain from the picture I’d sent her.
- I told her the dragon needed to look fiercer (it looked more like a cartoon gargoyle).
- I also didn’t like the train I’d initially picked and decided to switch it from an older Romanian-style train to the more modern Spanish versions we rode.
There were a few other comments, like:
- Changing the orientation of the wormhole.
- Moving the location of the object slightly.
- Changing the size ratio of the dragon to my protagonist, Alex Scire.
- And add a force field (it wasn’t there).
A couple of days ago, I got back the second cut, and it’s much better looking.
- The historical building at the top, probably my favorite building I’ve ever seen, is much better looking.
o I asked Rebecca to extend parts of the plaza and canal. The change will cover up the top part of the wormhole, but I wanted less of the space theme on the cover.
- The wormhole and object are about how I want them.
- I asked her to make some minor changes to the ghost (smaller, more horizontal, and lower).
- And the train (smaller, up a little higher, and angled down a little).
The most significant changes I asked her to make are with the dragon and Alex. I want it to look like the dragon is going to burn Alex alive (although in my book, dragons don’t breathe fire, they create fire magically), which means the fire will start in front of the dragon, not inside it.
The picture below shows you the transformation between my rough sketch and the second version in black and white. When the layout, proportions, and action look about right, my cover artist will add colors, which makes a huge difference.
I’ll keep you updated.
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