Stephanie Bibb's Blog, page 60

Behind the Scenes – Nairobi Bloodstar

This is a cover for Melange Books. In my first proof, I gave this more of a historical movie poster��look, but upon learning the book had a bit more of an action-thriller bent, I put more of a focus on the train wreck explosion than the scenery and characters. Still, I added texturing to give the cover the historical feeling, and I played with the coloring (we wanted the red highlights for the ruby). After playing with positioning of the title and the hands with the ruby, this is the final re...

Behind the Scenes – The French Couple

A cover for Melange Books. For this one, they already had the main art they wanted on the cover, but they wanted the title redone and a few adjustments made in regards to the overall effects. For this one, I mostly played with adding color to the dark halo around the model’s head, and played with the placement and color of the text so that it felt like part of the cover. This is the result:

The publisher provided the image to be used on the cover.

Behind the Scenes – Howling Mountain Blues

This is a��cover for Barking Rain Press.

For this cover, the third in the Crime Fighting Bluesmen series, we decided to model it after a Blues poster. For that, I stuck with more illustrated effects and textures, and stuck with a limited color scale, rather than the photo-realism I typically go for. I also played with juxtaposition, placing the monkey on top of the harmonica. In order to get the illustrated effect (which came from photos), I masked out the unnecessary portions of the photos, t...

Behind the Scenes – Howling Blue Mountains

This is a��cover for Barking Rain Press.

For this cover, the third in the Crime Fighting Bluesmen series, we decided to model it after a Blues poster. For that, I stuck with more illustrated effects and textures, and stuck with a limited color scale, rather than the photo-realism I typically go for. I also played with juxtaposition, placing the monkey on top of the harmonica. In order to get the illustrated effect (which came from photos), I masked out the unnecessary portions of the photos, t...

Author Interview – Jordan Mierek (Treasure Darkly)

Today we have an author interview with Jordan Elizabeth, the author of the upcoming book, Treasure Darkly. :-D

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Beware a Treasure Darkly…

(The stunning cover art is thanks to Amalia Chitulescu– find her here)

Seventeen-year-old Clark Treasure assumes the drink he stole off the captain is absinthe��� until the chemicals in the liquid give him the ability to awaken the dead. A great invention for creating perfect soldiers, yes, but Clark wants to live as a miner, not a slave to the army���or the...

Behind the Scenes – Fairy Christmas, Darling

For thiscover (Melange Books), I started with a similar concept to the final image here, but different models. To createthe characters described on the art form, I originally did quite a bit of piecing various stock images together. But since the publisher wanted to try to stick with stock images they’d already purchased, I took a look through the available options. Turned out we had one that worked quite well, and only used one stock piece instead of… five? I think? There were several.

Someti...

Behind the Scenes – For the Love of Ruthie

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, I wanted to portray a happy, light-hearted tone, so I used bright, vivid colors. I also used a font with a swirly influence to give the title and author name a fun, romantic feel. The pig is Ruthie, so I gave it a prominent place on the cover. The text I wrapped around the couple in the scene so that the faces remained clear. The author requested that there also be a cat and tri-colored basset hound pup on the cover, so I included them near th...

Behind the Scenes – Tangled Roots

This is a cover for Rebekkah Ford. I’ve created the cover for her Beyond the Eyes trilogy, and this is a New Adult companion novel. Unlike the previous covers, this one uses primarily stock images. We tinkered a lot with finding the right font for the book. I also played a lot with creating the right mood for the cover. I ended up finding a decent tutorial on how to turn a day shot into night (see the end of the post for a link). I also used a bit of digital illustration to get everything ble...

Behind the Scenes – The Doors

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this one, I used texture overlay (the mosaic around the edge), as well as scene creation to create the desired stormy atmosphere and remove some of the birds from the original haunted house stock photo. I added in the girl, then at the author’s request, gave her longer hair. There are benefits to finding pictures where the hair is similar in color and goes roughly the desired direction you want it to go.

My original proof for this cover was too dark and gr...

Guest Post – Escape From Witchwood Hollow

Today we have a guest post with Jordan Elizabeth, an author for whom I’ve beta read one of her manuscripts. She’ll be talking about her history as a writer below. :-)

How far into the hollow would you go?

“ After losing her parents in a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, fifteen-year-old Honoria escapes New York City to Arnn—a farming town with more legends than residents, and a history of witchcraft and secrets best left buried.

Everyone in Arnn knows the story of Witchwood Hollow: if you vent...