Get the Picture? DepartmentHere are my original idea...

Get the Picture? Department

Here are my original ideas for  The Sword and the Way cover (as if anyone asked for them).

Using N.C. Wyeth, one of my all-time favorite artists from the Golden Age of adventure-book illustration: (Ginny, who has more brains than I do, pointed out that readers would think the dragonship was the hero's ship--an important distinction.)






Using my feeble Sea Door From the East sketch, finished off with color pencils no less:


(Ginny, who has more sense--not to mention taste--than I do, saved readers from that one! Although I can't seem to delete it from our Goodreads page.)






Here's another cover concept we toyed with briefly:


(After exercises in resizing image relationships for the cover, we ended up inflicting these and some others on readers as interior illustrations--cleverly attempting to cover my lack of talent by blaming claiming a young Jorgan Anderson sketched them.)






Now aren't you glad I didn't subject you to any of these...er...well, sorry about that!


But aren't you glad I broke down and actually paid to get the picture--by a professional? Kudos to EC Stever who put us onto Viking Longships In Unknown Waters © Sylphe_7, istock photo ID # 506912511.

Er...wait a minute...that's the original.


Oops! Too much verbiage! Way overboard! (See what I did there? Don't you love puns? Okay, I'll stop.)




Nope!


That's it!