Have you seen the new cover for my standalone from Ace Books, the Blade that Remains? If not, here it is:
If that doesn’t get you to pre-order it, I want to know why!
No, seriously. I do want to know why.
But that’s not the post. I figured I’d do a business post (long time, I know!) about the cover design process here. I really do need to do a whole series of things from the trad perspective, and it’s on my to do list, but I keep thinking I need to structure it, take my time, etc. And then it doesn’t get done.
So here we go! I’ll do what I can, when I can.
Concept & Questions
So, funnily enough, I have another cover for this work. I created it 5+ years ago when I thought I was going to self-publish this work, and it is GORGEOUS too. (It’ll be part of our pre-order incentives, so don’t worry, you’ll see it).
When Anne (my editor) asked me about covers, I sent her the one I created and talked about what I was thinking, which was an action shot but with some magic involved.
Oh, and I should note, the first title for the work (my working title) was ‘A Father, A Son and a Demon Lord’.
Yeah…
One of the things we discussed during this process was the ‘type’ of covers I liked. Whether I wanted something more abstract, something more vivid and realistic or even a symbol design cover. My answer was I liked vivid and realistic, less abstract works and symbol covers were second place.
So concept, designs and overall explanation was sent to Ace Books. Then there was a long wait before…
Illustrator Choices
Ace Books returned with 3 designers including Dominick Saponaro. He was always my first choice, with another designer the second.
Now, I had the option of rejecting all three but really, they had some amazing picks (I liked all but the third and it was more a personal style choice than anything wrong with their art). So I was more than happy to go with our second choice.
Except… both first and second choices were busy. 🙁
Which meant that we I had to ask for more options. The art director went looking, but fortunately, a week later, Dominick came back and was free!
Woot! That made me all kind of excited because he is such an amazing artist.
Then…
More waiting.
(Sense a theme here?)
First Look – June 25
Seriously, the first look that came back was what looked like 3 revisions in (from the no. of the art file sent to me). So a LOT of the initial work was dealt with by the art director at Ace Books, which meant I did not get to see the initial composition, the changes and the like that came through.
What I did see was a black and white version that was 90% of what you all see. There were some changes that needed fixing (they gave him a dao rather than a jian, the armor was more plate mail than Chinese lamellar and I had notes on the demon).
However, it was so good I was incredibly happy. I figured I’d get another look at it before we got the final sketch, but I did send a bunch of sample works for the weapons for them to reference.
After that, I waited…
Final Art (?) – Aug 13
Aug 13 rolls along and the final art arrives! I was surprised, but so busy I hadn’t had a chance to follow up on the designs. It was very much what you saw, except some minor details that I would have changed if we had a second pass but…
We didn’t. And I had to ask (hat in hand) if they could do a revision, even though this was supposed to be final art.
Thankfully, Ace Books was quite willing to make the revisions…
Final Art (ver 2)
Except it still didn’t seem to work for me. There were still some minor changes and I had to (again) ask for more changes. This, by the way, is INCREDIBLY annoying for an artist and I know I was being a brat, but it just wasn’t working for me just yet, and it needed only one more minor change.
I hadn’t even realised what it was till Anne mentioned the possible solution and I said ‘yes, that’s it!’. (I really like my editor, btw. She’s amazing).
Final Art (ver 3 – and really, final) and FONT options
The final art came along, and this time it was everything I wanted. It was perfect really, and everything that you saw. The tricky part next was they were now sending font options to me for questions…
And I had to ask myself what kind of font I wanted. One was more fantastical, with more swoops and design elements, and the other option offered was the one you see here.
I ended up going with this one, because I wanted the cover to dominate. Too much of the other version and the two would be competing against one another I thought.
So, that part (thankfully) was easy enough.
And then we wait…
Yeah, we got the cover a few weeks ago and we had to wait. Wait till we did the reveal at DragonCon at the PRH panel, and then do the big reveal on 9/9.
And now it’s out in the world and my job (and the cover) is to drum up pre-orders.
So….
Do you like the cover? Have you put in a pre-order? If not, why not?
Recent Comments