The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance.
Aristotle
This post is an update on my book 3, The Sangreal, cover art.
As I’ve mentioned before, developing the cover art has been one of the most difficult tasks I’ve faced in publishing my books. Besides not being able to envision the artwork, I also take things too literally. For instance, with The Sangreal, I wanted the cover to reflect what the book was about – magic, ghosts, dragons, and historical places, as I did on the first two books. If you look at the picture below, you can see those elements in the artwork on the left.
Version 1 includes:
- The magical object (The Sangreal or Holy Grail) in the center. Note – the object is a picture of a Calix.
- The historical place is the Plaza de España in Seville, Spain – the most impressive building I’ve ever seen. It’s huge, beautiful, and fascinating (it has tile alcoves telling a little about the history of each (48) Spanish province.
- You can also see the dragon that plays a prominent role at the end of the book.
- The unfinished train you see on the lower right-hand side is indicative of all the trains my protagonist and I took in Spain and Romania – the primary locations for the book.
- The figure on the right center of the cover is the book’s main antagonist – Tomás de Torquemada (The Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition).
- A representation of a wormhole.
Problems with version 1: (left picture)
- I was never comfortable with my original concept because I thought it was too complex/confusing. I tried reconciling it by comparing it to Harry Potter’s covers, which have many subtle plot elements on each cover, but I was never comfortable with it.
- The Plaza de España is so huge that it took up too much of the cover. It played a role in the book, but not an outsized one. Although the plaza’s colors were representative of Spain’s colors (the tan of the landscape and the clear blue skies), they contrasted with the wormhole covers.
- Net – it didn’t feel right.
Version 2 Changes: (right picture)
- The most obvious change is the switch in historical places from the Plaza de España to Bran Castle. It was the most difficult change for me as I had to think ‘figuratively’ vs. ‘literally’ because, although it’s discussed, Alex never goes there. My daughter gave me the idea to switch because she really liked the ending of book 3, which involves Vlad Tepes and Romania. I chose Bran Castle because it’s a symbol of the two.
- My daughter also suggested putting the castle inside the wormhole, as that’s part of the story.
- As you can see, the castle became the focal point of the book and, in my opinion, gives a feel for the events in the story.
- But, it is so strong of an image that I thought it would be better to get rid of the ghost and train. I think it’s a much cleaner, more unified picture.
- I didn’t make any substantial changes to Alex fighting the dragon, although getting the dragon right has been challenging. I’ve looked at hundreds of pictures of dragons online, and none were what I imagined my dragons to look like.
- There are still a few more changes in the works, but they’re fairly minor. Then off to titles and back copy.
Comments