Book Progress Update for 'The Trespassers'

Illustration by yours truly!

If you’ve been following my Facebook author page, you may had seen a post there from last week saying there would be a cover reveal here early this week for my upcoming short-read book, “The Trespassers”. I was actually hoping to have that cover reveal here today but it looks like it’s going to have to be in a special blog post a little later in the week.  The artist I had sent the concept sketch to made the full illustration based on it but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. So, I asked her to make some changes. I’m posting below my side of the text chat with her to show you the details that need to be changed. 

One of those details is the overall style of the illustration. It needs to be more photo-realistic. I don’t care for photo-realism myself, and I care for it much less in digital art, because I find it too technical and lacking expression. However, unfortunately for some of us, it’s what’s dominating the literary market as far as book covers go. It seems literary consumers go for realistic instead of interpretive in book covers like audiences in the 1970s went for realism in cinema instead of stylistic symbolism. Yet, I’m still trying to make the cover look awe-inspiring and so hope readers, regardless of their preferences in art style, will find it such. 

Here's an extract of what I asked for in response to the illustration the artist showed me over the weekend. If you need to reference the concept sketch to see more clearly what I’m asking for, you’ll find it at my previous post. 

It's not bad but can you make it a little more photoreal-looking? Also, can we make the sand dunes resemble more the ones in the sketch I provided you with? What you have of the . . . planet's surface here looks more like tide imprints. Keep in mind that the planet has a desert geography. Try to give it a darker tone, too, since the book it's for is a science fiction horror. 

Also, can you make the two astronauts appear to be flying/gliding away from the observer? Here [in the illustration she made] they look more as if they are falling downward parallel to the planet's surface.  

One more thing: please make the serpent's head resemble more a shark's, but don't make it resemble a shark too much (e.g., just one row of teeth top and bottom, not several rows), and add some colour to it such as a blue or red, whatever complements the surrounding colours. . . .

Keep checking back here and at my Facebook and Instagram pages throughout the week for the cover reveal and then, finally, the release of “The Trespassers”!

Until then . . .