FireSeed One – Book Cover Illustration and Design

I just finished a Young Adult, Science Fiction book cover illustration and design for NYC author, teacher, artist, Catherine Stine. She wanted to publish this through her own publishing company just formed called Konjur Road Press. The book will be published this year and will be for sale on Amazon.com and a few other places as an e-book. I’ll post a link when it’s up.

Without actually reading the entire book, Catherine gave me snippets of descriptions from the manuscript, picture inspiration, lots of detailed descriptions. Since she is an artist herself she was able to sketch out basically what she was thinking as well. Through collaboration and a few revisions we were able to nail it to get something we were both happy with. Here are a few process images to simply show that these covers take work and dedication, especially when it’s something that does not exist. It’s for a 6″ x 9″ book with a .6″ spine. Thumbnails done with pencil and paper with a little digital clean up. Final completed using Photoshop CS5  mainly with various pastel tip brushes. Had some help with Poser for the people, Illustrator for the map and foreground water farm on the back. I really like the way it turned out and want to do more. So please let me know if you need anything done. I’m happy to help.

Comments are welcome!

One is Not Zero

Sorry I have not been posting. I’m real busy with lots of work but can’t show any of it. Except this..

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta commissioned an original painting as gift for a retiring executive. He had a big part in creating their One is Not Zero program.

I hand delivered it yesterday to a very happy client.
11″ x 8.5″, acrylic on watercolor paper, no digital tweaks.

Swirly Fun!

Spirals are so much fun!

I was inspired by this Adobe Illustrator tutorial and did my own version in about 30 min. Completely created in Illustrator.

Conceptual Map

New work for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in yesterday’s paper. It was for an informative article on the complexities or balkanization of the metro Atlanta counties government. Maybe Atlanta needs to downsize or just play nice and communicate with each other then we all win the game. The art can only be scene in print and here of course.

It was a challenge coming up with generic icons for various government officials. Most of the rendering was done in Illustrator and texture was added in Photoshop. Please buy the paper so I can continue to get editorial jobs like this.

Captain America Skulloctopus

Back in 2009 I did this watercolor and pastel called Skulloctopus.

I had no real reason for doing so except that it was a cool and freaky creature.

Last night I saw Captain America and I noticed the emblem on the Red Skull villain was a skull with tentacles.

It only has 6 tentacles so it’s not a true octopus. It’s the Hydra emblem. Despite the name’s capitalization per Marvel’s official spelling the name is not an acronym but rather a reference to the mythical Lernaean Hydra. The organization’s motto references the myth of the Hydra, proclaiming that “if a head is cut off, two more will take its place” proclaiming their resilience and growing strength in the face of resistance. Reference from Wikipedia.

Well I got inspired and did some color adjustments and came up with this version and made up my own backstory.

Beware of the Skulloctopus of the small Coral Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This vile creature guards the Cosmic Cube of the Red Skull! No one can has found or gotten past this vile creature. This is only a rendition of what it would look like.