Portfolio pieces
Book covers and ideas
I had to include a section for book jackets. Who doesn’t love a book cover? And what self respecting illustrator wouldn’t want to make them?? And then with the magic of Photoshop I get to mock them up as if they’re real! It’s almost as good as the real thing. Drop me a line to discuss me illustrating and/or designing a book cover for you. Check out the various ideas below.
Portfolio piece
Elf scifi dystopia?
So what is this? Seriously what is it? I love fantasy and scifi and dystopian books, so here we are, an idea for a YA dystopian scifi romance type thing. Once I drew out my first concepts a great deal of the story just popped into my head. Of course I probably won’t write it though. For each personal piece I do I often have the bones of an entire novel come with it, and unfortunately I’m too old to go chasing every story-bone I’m thrown. Which is a shame because I’d like to read this one.
Personal piece
His Dark Materials
Iorek Byrnison: “Can is not the same as must. Lyra Silvertongue. But if you must and you can, then there’s no excuse.”
Lyra Silvertongue, King Iorek Byrnison and Pantalaimon from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials are three of the greatest characters in fiction. In our house we loved them as we read these extraordinary books and missed them once we’d finished. I’ve wanted to paint them from the moment I read them, but it’s taken all these years to get around to giving myself permission. Of course now that I’ve started I’ll have to do more. Need to do a larger one of Lyra and Pan especially. Painting them at this size doesn’t do them justice. Also I just wasn’t thinking about cover design here, I just painted what was in my head. Featuring Iorek on his own as striking as he is isn’t quite right so I will do this again but making sure that Lyra and Pan get pride of place.
A note on the throne: I used runes from a Viking coffin stone. I used them for the ancient feel although the words are actually not relevant to Iorek. The whale iconography above Iorek’s head is my imagining of what the mythical creatures for such bears might be.
Portfolio piece
Liberty
I’ve long wanted to paint the Statue of Liberty for a book cover. Such a strong image which instantly communicates so much. I wanted the illustration to give both a little abstraction and the worn sense of the copper patina to provide a recognition of the erosion of the values for which the statue stands.
Portfolio piece
Down
Trying for a more traditional YA style cover here. I’m seeing this as a series style. I will upload a second to demonstrate how it might proceed in a couple of months.
