Judging a book by it's cover--- my process

I can't speak to how others commit art, and goodness knows I commit it in different fashions on a regular basis, but there are a few givens in the process. I thought I'd set this down, for those who have the tendency of liking to see how others do it (I'm one of those myself, I find it inspiring). Or to inform those who have no idea, especially those who may be foraying into the self-publishing realm, for what to look for, what to expect and what's realistic. It's difficult to know whether a price you pay for the artwork is fair or not without knowing the process 

Some of my covers I've done already:

I think you can tell these are my work, right?

What even constitutes a good cover? Harder than you think. A good cover not only embodies the spirit of a book. It needs to be eye grabbing, clear, reduce down to a small size and be legible and exploded up and still hold the design. Simply eloquent visually with a minimum of clutter. A friend with a BRILLIANT cover, Cynthia Lord's RULES is a great example of an exceptional cover. Intriguing, colorful, humorous, it conforms to all of these things.

I hand render my work. Keep in mind it will look like my art. So if you want a certain kind of cover, you need to find out who does it, or EMULATE (do not plagiarize, or you could get into a world of hurt on that!) Think about the character of the book and the character of the cover, not only the imagery, whimsical does not a horror story make, for instance.

Ingredients for your cover: You need to have the title, byline. Personally, unless your book is an award winner, any blurbs, etc. I believe should be on the back, for the most part.  The less busy ness the better!

I just finished a cover for my friend Margot Finke, and she's given permission for me to share the process. I will not only explain the reasoning, but will also be upfront about the expense end of it, because I'm not the only one doing this for extra credit, and if you're an author buying someone's services it may help you to decide if the money is worth it or not. Again, realize this is MY process, so if you're doing this, you need to talk with the illustrator you hire, so you don't have many glitches.

The first thing I do is talk with the author. Some authors are so specific, they can tell me exactly what they want. There are times I won't take that particular job. Just as authors need to own what they do, barring critique and editorial input, illustrators are alike in that regard. If it feels as if there's no room for me, there are other artists as well as Photoshop and Clip Art out there for the author to make a cover exactly the way they envision. Personally I want them to want ME with my style.

Also if they balk at my price (covers range from $100-300, depending on the detail and time involved, more often than not it comes in at under $150. Sounds like a lot but when you realize I'm not working on my stuff, and it works out to less than minimum wage most of the time, and other than my promoting the cover as my work- which also helps the author-- they own the artwork in my eyes. The only thing I ask is if they need to make changes to it, they give me the opportunity to do it, because my name is on the work as well.

If I take the job, it's one third - one half down, depending on the resources available and what the author is comfortable. Next I  read the book. I'm a slow reader, have difficulties with my eyes, so it can take upwards to a couple of days if it's a longer work.

 Then I will sketch it out, keeping in mind the original conversations. This is the first sketches I showed Margot for her upcoming book, Down Under Calling:

This wasn't what Margot had in mind so we spoke a bit more and I reworked it to this:

and a colored version fleshed out a bit more to give an idea of the palette:

 This is usually where I get the author's approval to go on. In this case, talking further, we lost the clothes line, and I put a pair of kookaburras in, then edited further:

Now we start playing with the titles, Margot liked my calligraphy from Nana's Gift. I haven't got my pens with me so I play in Photoshop. In the end I used a combination of Photoshop rendered and hand rendered-I can make a broad edge with a couple of pencils, papertowel and rubberbands for a small amount of text-- and Photoshop edited Title and byline. Here's the playings with:

Decided to lose the Kookaburra, then the Frilly, the color of the shoes, a few little details.... 

And VOILA! We have Achieved Cover!

 There is still the adjustment of the title so it's not hitting the top of the page to make, but over all I like this, composition and the color.  If someone has paid me one third, they will pay the second third when I give them the color study. Final payment is due with the finished art. I send them the 350 dpi and a web version of 72 dpi. I tell them I can resize specifically (it's better to do it in Photoshop, the resolution is far superior) if they give me the dimensions they need. 

P.S.

Another trick to see if things clearly, if your composition and forms are working,  but you have to do it to a COPY, is to DESATURATE the work. Rendered in grey you can see if the work holds and reads well. Here's the study I did for that:

Hope this helps!

Rocky road Annie...

I've had a hard time letting this one go. Somethings I know if someone else could take over; I don't mind the collaboration. But this project, has been particularly difficult on all kinds of levels. First it's not my story. It's a good friend whom I loved. Second, I knew her, the place, the history, but I didn't live in her time, didn't actually know the actors other than Ann, and I'm not African-American/First Nation (okay we do have the First Nation in common, and I think her dad did hie from Canada as my grandfather's family had, so we weren't totally unaligned, still this wasn't about our shared heritage, and I recognize the tale I tell is an undertold one that has meaning for a lot of people I don't know, and could be argued I don't have a particular sensitivity to). Still I am sensitive to her, the area, the history, the story. Part of the difficulty was feeling even qualified (I had her permission and help with this, so it was self-doubt).

Annie wasn't about the color of her skin, she was about living her life well, with joy and grace and determination, and I want that as well. So perhaps it is my tale to tell. The idea such a rich life might not be shared, pushed me into finish writing.

I also knew if I went traditionally, more than likely I wouldn't be able to do the illustrations. This was a toughie. Back and forth. I don't have a name, and more than likely I'd be paired with an African American illustrator, and many of my favoritest illustrators are black. But I love history. I love Old Orchard Beach, I love Ann. I would be okay with the idea and then get cold feet at the idea, because the idea of illustrating it just set my heart to beating. Truth be told I love the text but I wrote it for the illustrations, lol.

So self publishing, here I come.

The books by Tom Bancroft, I got for Margot's project and it helped immeasurably, impacted this as well. I will post the first two renderings of the first page (still unfinished, need to adjust a few things, and figure out what I'm doing with the text, whether using type (Perpetua) or calligraphic self-designed lettering as I'd first intended...

and here's an illustration I can't use, though I loved doing this drawing (hey loved it so much there's five different versions SOMEWHERE) but give you an idea of the feeling I want with the text...

Mama got back-- OUTBACK!

Any good writer knows  you have to have backstory, background. It's the same for illustrators. In this new venture of ebooks, the great hope is to animate the books. In order to do that, all the characters have to be made separately so they can be activated as it were. So thinking about the illustrations for this has been a different process. I was lucky through a series of posts to have found Tom Bancroft's books mentioned earlier. They've not only helped with considerations of how to build and animate the characters, but also with how those characters act within their environment. In this case, I'm trying to think of the background (and approaching it) as another character.

Because of time constraints, consistency and my computer's limitations, my plan has been (we'll see if it actually works out that way, HA!) to paint one overall background. I can crop for closeups and build on it. This is the very early planning stages, but I can already visualize Oscar's sleeping log, and where he looks in the waters edge while Kingfisher dives for a meal. Have to reference more flowers and mulberry bush and gum trees, and place them within, will also need to RENDER this (this is a very rough sketch). I also found a great blog on Background art... just a mighty fine thing (coming from someone who always resented having to concentrate her drawing on anything she didn't want to and that would be surroundings, until I realized that surroundings ARE part and parcel to story and character): animation backgrounds with Rob Richards

I need to get new ear buds, I think when I do, I'll put on some outdoor sounds (maybe I can find an actual billabong recording ala Edgar Winter?) when I do the finished renderings, but I'm loving the process! I think I will also include my thoughts on my own book (Duke Day for Annie) as I'm working on them simultaneously and hoping they will both be presentable before Christmas. Yeah, when I take a bit of the pie it's not a small bite, I oftenshove the whole thing into my open maw!

So the ROUGH background!

Back to it! I'm excited and glad to be back working. I share an update, and hope to be working on process and such as well as sharing it all in the upcoming weeks. First, I had a few epiphanies over the interim weeks. I need to simplify, clarify and color-ify (is that a word? It is now!) my work.
     Ebooks are differenter than publication. One of the reasons I wanted to do this project, I knew it would help my own personal projects. I love animals, but being able to paint someone else's pictures (like teaching) means I can rethink some of my projects because the process is self-clarifying. I will share the finished second illustration and a few changes, because it will no longer BE the second illustration.  I'm currently reading Will Terry's WONDERFUL, must read-blog (to me at least! http://willterry.blogspot.com/) and already stumbled over an affirmation (remarkable how comforting it is to have that kind of reinforcement, kind of like I'm on the "right track").
      In his post on "I live to Create" he shows his process of one of his drawings. Somewhere down the line he notes how his character wouldn't fit through the door. "This is where I realized that my little mouse would never fit through the door. Sometimes when I get working along I lose objectivity and this is a good example. I had to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted it to look right I would have to spend an extra hour or so fixing my mistake. So, I had to cut out little mouse and move her forward in front of her vegetable basket. In the past I would have settled. In the future I'm sure I'll be able to spot the places where I settled in this image."  Not to mention, the fact I learned a few neat tricks (I actually "mastered" Photoshop, because I've taken his online course through his Folio Academy).
      Anyhow, this has been true for me. In this example, you can see the original drawing of the characters in Oscar's dream sequence...

     What I realized after I'd colored most of them, the proportions didn't work. I enlarged and cut and pasted and learned quite a bit in the process. I now feel enough confidence changing in the middle (or even the end) isn't so scary and far superior to not being happy with the result. 
     What I ended up with...

      I like it far better as far as proportions go (HA! the ADD, dyslexia which CAN be amusing and informative kicked in, and I'm going to talk about how it is to work with THOSE kinds of differenter, and I'd written "propoortions" before I corrected. Talk about FREUDIAN, lol!). But now I don't care for the colors or composition. It's interesting, but it's too busy and I don't think it will translate to a small screen, which is a goal. 

     I'll be reading the rest of Will's blog before I restart, but restart I must. Don't get me wrong. I will probably use this as a start, and I will more than likely keep some of this flavoring (not to mention I have to be considerate of the REAL colorations and animals. Who knows, I may cut and paste, remove, redraw and play with this particular drawing. But I'm sure what I end up with, won't look like this, and I will like it better. It will be more of what Oscar ordered, because I can tell, he'd really love to have his story told to the very best of my ability. So another cup of peach tea and then back to the mulberry tree, with me!