Anatomy of a Todd Lockwood book cover

Via Suvudu, a link to a highly interesting couple of posts by multi award-winning fantasy artist Todd Lockwood that explains the creative process behind of the cover for the latest R. A. Salvatore Drizzt Do'Urden novel, The Pirate King.

From this:

All the way through to this:

The series includes a third post which focuses on the detail of the main character, with a short video demonstrating how the layers of detail were built up. Fascinating stuff if, like me, you have a keen interest in fantasy art but very little in the way of artistic talent and know-how.

Both images obviously copyright (c) Todd Lockwood. Click on them for the relevant blog posts explaining the earlier and later stages of the process.

December 17, 2008 | Filed Under Fantastic Art | 2 Comments

Cover Artistry: 'The Ten Thousand' by Paul Kearney (Solaris, UK)

A couple of weeks ago, Solaris Books unveiled the cover of the forthcoming (September 2008) Paul Kearney novel The Ten Thousand [Amazon] over on the Solaris blog.

Here's the cover art, with illustration by Chris McGrath:

I love the overall atmosphere that Chris has created here: the colour, tone and texture of the piece is just terrific, as is the depth of the image; with several layers of action and interaction, giving the impression of an ongoing action sequence. I like the overall design as well: the composition and layout adds to and enhances the aesthetic of the cover; typography is suitably strong and stark, not fussy or over-fancy.

Paul Kearney writes very gritty, often dark epic / heroic fantasy, with very strong military content and I think this whole package reflects that general approach very well; certainly much better than any the earlier covers for his Monarchies of God series, which played up the fantasy elements much more, or his Sea Beggars books, which I think maybe tried too hard to play down the fantasy elements and disguise themselves as nautical fiction.

I will admit that when I first saw this cover - I run Paul's website, and he sent me the cover a few weeks back to have a look at - I was rather dubious about pretty-boy on the right-hand side there. But I'm sure there are all sorts of perfectly valid, marketing-driven reasons why a cover ought to include a jolly good-looking chap like that. Maybe there are particular market segments that the publisher wants to appeal to, or maybe the cover is also intended for use in the US market, where character portraits are much more commonly used.

But still... surely that guy is just too darned pretty to have fought in and survived the sort of conflicts that the hardened mercenary warriors in The Ten Thousand will have been involved in? Then again, I haven't read the book yet, so maybe he looks exactly right. We'll see.

Although, with reference to my previous post, I do think that putting the main character in a full-face helm, like the ones the figures in the background are all wearing, would have been better. That would have allowed the reader to associate more strongly with the imagery; imagining themselves inside that helm, marching into battle on some far-flung field... rather than wondering who the male model is, and how he managed to wander into the middle of a battle without getting his stubble-jawed head lopped off...

So, to summarise: a very good cover indeed, with terrific artwork and great atmospheric effect. Well-designed and nicely laid out; only slightly let down by the portrait effect and the male-model subject matter. But I'm sure I'll get over it, because I've read the first few chapters of The Ten Thousand, courtesy of Mr K, and the story so far is shaping up very, very nicely indeed...

December 1, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 8 Comments

Cover Theory: Putting a Face to it.

Here's a question for you: do you think it's a good idea, or a bad idea, to have character portraits - specifically clear, distinct faces - on book covers?

My current theory, which I'd welcome your thoughts on, is this:

I think I'm right in saying that readers tend (however consciously or subconsciously) to identify with the main character of the novel they're reading. In doing so - by picturing themselves in that lead role and mentally role-playing their way through the narrative - they increase their sense of identification and association with the book. Which is a Good Thing, yes?

But a face is a very strong indicator of personality and individuality. So if you put a face on a book cover, won't that create the sense of entity and persona for that character that's distinct and removed from that of the reader? And wouldn't that be a psychological obstacle to the identification of the reader with the character, and result in the lessening of the reader's involvement in the novel?

In which case, surely publishers should avoid portraying characters on the covers of their books? Particularly if it's one of the principle p.o.v. characters, and definitely if it's the main, first-person narrator of the story. Otherwise there's a risk that readers won't immerse themselves fully in the narrative, and won't form such a strong associative bond with the series, or with the author's ongoing body of work. Not such a Good Thing.

Or am I reading too much into the idea of automatic reader-as-character association?

I do know it's something that I tend to do. One of the (many) reasons I'm such a big fan of The Dresden Files (covers by Orbit, example to the right reflected throughout the series: no characters in evidence whatsoever) used to be that I just knew I'd look damn good in that duster coat... but when I read the last installment, I just saw the guy from the TV series (which creates an even bigger dissociation problem than a character on a book jacket, for obvious reasons) in my mind's eye. I was no longer reading the adventures of me-as-Harry-Dresden; I was watching a new TV episode in my head, instead.

Then again, not everyone will have the same subjective experience when reading a book as I do, obviously. And anyway, isn't the quality of the prose, the degree to which the descriptive writing evokes the sense of character, far more likely to generate a sense of deep involvement than any image on the cover?

I have to admit that it's been a personal bugbear of mine for years; one I do keep coming back to. And for now I'm still on the side of 'faces on covers = bad'.

But what do you think?

November 28, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 6 Comments

'Matter' by Iain M Banks - cover art revealed

My mate Ed Ashby seems to have managed a bit of a coup. Or at least, I'm assuming so as I haven't seen the cover art for the brand new Culture novel, Matter [Amazon] splashed across all the sf news blogs just yet.

In fact, I don't know if it's even official. It's on the Little, Brown website, sure, but there hasn't been a post to the Orbit Books blog... so either this is actually an early draft artwork that some LB website intern has managed to upload by mistake and the guys at Orbit are going to kill me, or it really is the finished product and very few others have seen it yet, in which case, full kudos to Ed!

Of course, the other possibility is that I've had my head under a rock, everyone has seen this already and the previous two paragraphs - plus the newsbite I just posted to UKSFBN - will come back to haunt me (cue a rash of comments with links to 'New Banks cover' posts written months ago...)

But just in case this is still news to a few folks, here's the artwork:

Update, 19:05 hrs: Yup, it's official!

August 9, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Client website updates: Les Edwards & Edward Miller

Spent most of last week with my head down, working hard on the July update for the two sites I run on behalf of Les Edwards and his artistic alter-ego, Edward Miller.

Les is a truly terrific artist; I've been a fan of his work since I was a teenager and our house is decorated with prints of some of mine and Jo's favourite pieces: 'The Darkest Part of the Woods' and 'Atkinson Revenant' in the dining room, 'The Croglin Vampire' here in the office, 'Cities' and 'Blood Follows' in our living room (actually, 'Blood Follows' is the original artwork, but we don't like to show off...) and we've just acquired a print of 'This is Now' for the bedroom. We would have bought the original artwork of that one as well, but we were reliably informed that a certain author (whose mini story collection it graces) beat us to it...

Anyhow, there are about 50 new images across the various galleries on the two sites. Generally, the first few images in each gallery are the new ones (although I'm working on ideas for the best way to make that a bit more user-friendly and obvious). Here are some of my favourites from the new batch:

The afore-mentioned 'This is Now', which was used on a Subterranean Press chapbook of three Michael Marshall Smith short stories given to attendees of the 2007 World Horror Convention in Canada:

Edward Miller artwork for 'This is Now' by Michael Marshall Smith

The quite lovely artwork for the Subterranean Press edition of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora (note to Gollancz with regards to their original UK cover: this is how it should've been done, folks...)

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' by Scott Lynch, Subterranean Press edition

And here's the artwork for the Gollancz UK (just to show they're back on the ball...) edition of Chris Wooding's forthcoming novel The Fade:

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Fade' by Chris Wooding

They're all 'Edward Miller' rather than 'Les Edwards' pieces, I know, but that's because there's just something in the use of colour, form and texture in the Miller work that really appeals to me.

I also sent Les a few questions for an interview piece, which I posted yesterday evening over on www.uksfbooknews.net. He has some interesting things to say about the use of fantasy art in book design, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

And I shouldn't leave without mentioning that Les is having a summer sale between now and the end of September. Buy any of the fine art prints available on either website (the vast majority of the images are available as prints, apart from the pencil sketch prelims and anything where the copyright of the work is no longer owned by Les) and you'll enjoy a 20% discount on the usual prices.

July 3, 2007 | Filed Under Freelance Work | Leave a Comment

Take a look: KrazyDad.com's Graphic Novel Explorer

Via When Gravity Fails, a link to a rather fun (but, by the sounds of things incredibly intricate and difficult to write) Flash application by Jim Bumgardner of KrazyDad.com, the graphic novel explorer.

Cover images are collated from Amazon.com, organized by price and dominant colour and then arranged on-screen in a random field of mini-images, each of which expands into a larger image when you mouse-over, and that you can then click on to get more info on at Amazon.com.

So far, Jim has also put together something similar for the covers of assorted science fiction magazines and the cover history of MAD Magazine.

I reckon it's a great way of making random discoveries and something that could have come in very handy back when I was a bookseller, given the number of "I can't remember the title, but the cover was green..." enquiries I used to get.

I also think it would make be great as the visual equivalent of a Tag Cloud if it was released as a blog widget, although judging by a quick read of Jim's methodology, that might not be do-able. But still, you could load up a database field with ISBNs and have the information pulled from your Amazon of choice into a personalised cover-cloud on your own site. It would be a great way of letting your readers know what sort of books you were most interested in.

April 16, 2007 | Filed Under Comics & GNs | 2 Comments