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Book Cover Illustration Progress Report

Here’s how far I’ve gotten on the book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” since last week:

A colored-pencil drawing of a six-armed goddess statue.
Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr.


As you can see, I haven’t even gotten to the sky yet. But I finally darkened all of the ground. But not enough. I didn’t realise this until I coloured in the man at the bottom. Here’s a close-up of him:

Colored-pencil drawing of a young man dropping a camera in fright.
Credit: Steven Arellano Rose, Jr.


I know, it’s blurry. But the man is very small in the picture to begin with. I just wanted you to see the contrast in shades. Also, he looks like Frankenstein’s monster, but he isn’t. I lightened the top of his hair to give the effect of reflected light, but it makes his head look flat so I’m going to change that.

I had made peach the base colour for his complexion. However, because the main scheme of the drawing is blue I needed to make his complexion as such because that’s what it would look like in a half-moon’s light which the light source in this picture is based. So, in order for him not to turn into the Invisible Man, I had to darken an area of ground around him. But I don’t want to give the realism away by leaving a surrounding blotch that says it’s there to show the guy in the picture. So I need to colour the rest of the ground that same tone. I’ll be doing that throughout the coming week.

But don’t expect a cover reveal next weekend because I won’t be doing the full post then. Next weekend I’ll be volunteering my time helping with a vintage video game event at a local library. Because of that, I’ve lined up a guest blogger: L.G. Keltner. L.G. will be talking about her book, Self-Help 101: Or How To Survive a Bombardment With Minimal Injury, so you don’t have to keep hearing about mine that I keep talking about but never launch. I did a cover reveal for L.G.’s book last month. If you missed it, then I urge you to go check it out.

Please feel free to leave any comments about the progress of “Circa Sixty Years”’s cover illustration or anything else. Comments about the illustration will help me know what improvements you think it can use. Which reminds me, the informal contest I talked about last time is still on since nobody’s contacted me or left any comments about where the mistake in my book cover illustration is. See last week’s blog for more details. I’ll give you another week to find the error or, if it proves too hard for too many people, to ask for hints.

Until next time . . .

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