BOOK II COVER PROCESS

(moved from the $5 tier now that the page is live! i'll be handing out high res copies at the end of the month in their appropriate formats for all the tiers)

Since the Book II Cover has already been available to Patrons for awhile, and that's what the site is updating with tomorrow, I'm gonna let you guys in to the process behind the scenes and the story behind this creature's creation. 

STEP `1: ART BLOCK

As with the Cover of Book I, this features a very plot-important creature/character that will be relevant to this Arc's climax. I've known exactly WHAT the creature will be for awhile, but not so much what it looked like, so the Cover was my chance to sit down and figure out the last of the little details to that specific aspect of the story.

But, you know, you can think as hard as you can and work with something for so long before you have to admit that there is just nothing coming to you and nothing is really speaking to you. In my case, I was, at the time I was working on the design, so tired, stressed, and burned out, that I had to admit where the line for me was and what I could actually do with it. Too much of what I was drawing didn't really feel interesting or workable, and everything I did reminded me too much of the Frog Creatures from Mike Mignola's BPRD.  

So, it was time to find some alternate solutions.

STEP 2: OUTSOURCING

Working in """The Industry""" has already taught me a lot of invaluable lessons, one of which is, if you're stuck and have hit a wall regarding a specific hurdle, you can outsource the work to another artist to see what solutions they come up with, and adapt them as much as you like to fit your needs. Not only does it help you become unstuck, you're also supporting another artist whose work you admire, so it's a win-win situation.

It feels like cheating, but it is, in actuality, a professional and efficient solution to a rather abstract problem. It's something production did for the show I'm currently working on before I even got here - they simply contracted 4-5 well known artists to do their own take on the character designs, to just give themselves and future employees as many ideas to work with as  possible.

Ultimately, the person I reached out to is E. Coffee, a great artist whose monster and horror themed pieces I use as inspiration a lot when I've wanted to draw and write something creepy.
I gave them the basic concept of the creature, the general "feel" I was hoping the creature would have, and told them what I would be using it for, but didn't show them any of my drawings because I wanted as unbiased a design as possible.
Their original concept was so dang solid and wonderful that I knew I had asked the right person for help - the final design is mostly untouched from its original concept, barring my request for backwards feet, to follow some common characteristics in a lot of different cultures' lore about this creature. 

Some aspects of the designs might be further tweaked and exaggerated from the final design they sent me, but FINALLY! I design I like and that has a lot of fun storytelling aspects I can really take advantage of when the chapter in which it is featured is written.

STEP 3: PRODUCTION

All right! The monster design is done, I already have a template ready from the Cover for the First Book, so let's get crackin'!

Version 1 - For each Chapter and Book Cover, I throw together a rough idea of a composition to try and figure out how it will look and if the concept in my head will actually work well on paper.

I did several different simple pen drawings of the creature following the design sheet Coffee sent me, and I picked the one I thought was the most interesting and started playing with its placement on the cover. Since our main character is going by the name "Thistle" for the entirety of this book, that will be the featured flower, so I do a quick simple drawing of a batch of thistles to play with digitally.

I also use "Here There Be Monsters" as the working title, but I'm sure that I can come up with something better.

Version 2 - I have the groundwork done, so now it's time to go in and really start playing around with the placement and composition. Basic shading and colors are added.

The thistles were originally placed in the same manner as the Book I Cover, but I feel it looks a little too boring and top-heavy, so I stagger them to fit a more diagonal placement, and redraw the legs of the creature to fit the space a bit better. I'm pretty satisfied with it at this point, but it still doesn't feel like it's done yet.

Version 3 - After a couple days of letting it sit in a drawer, I come back at the piece with some new eyes, and ask some other trusted friends what their thoughts on it are. 

In the final version, my husband (what would I do without him) points out that tweaking the placement of one of the creature's legs is a better way of closing the composition in a way that feels satisfying and guides the viewer's eye in a more circular manner around the page. A new title is discovered and it's wonderful.

....the last stage of the process is to agonizingly keep all your work to yourself for a month while pumping out pages and suffering in isolation about how excited you are for this design and the rest of the story, and then excitedly vomit out everything about it when you can finally do so. 

I'm very excited to be back and moving the story forward again. Taking a break is always nice for the first week and a half, and then I get depressed and wonder why I'm unhappy for another week, before realizing that this is what I'm missing. Thank you for reading!