Here is a cover I completed for Kraig Dafoe’s latest novel, Skorch, earlier this year.
It was a fun piece to do – I don’t often get asked to just do images like this with a single figure and a fairly uncomplicated background. Though, perhaps that’s partially my own fault for making many images more complicated than they need to be, I dunno. Anyway, I think the most fun I had with this piece was the background, which admittedly, isn’t that abnormal. Especially when it comes to drawing nature, which I love.
Part of the fun is doing the research and looking at all these inspiring images of forests – I take a lot of inspiration from nature and I absolutely love doing pieces that have trees, rocks, leaves, etc.
Below are my initial sketches, the drawing, and the final with type.
You can see that this went through a variety of different approaches until we landed on something the client liked. Personally, I would have loved to do the second background with the twisted up old forest with mossy rocks, but ultimately, it didn’t fit the material as well. With that said, I do really like how the trees, vines, and leaves in the final turned out. And over all, I’m pretty darn happy with the colors.
I’m also not a designer myself and I always feel a little nervous about sending something out that I set the type on. It’s nothing too fancy and the client was happy, so at least there’s that!
JM
