Part the second, which goes after part the first. If you haven't read the first part, go here to get an idea of the steps taken to reach this point. At this stage, with the sky box and distant background elements close to completion, all work shifted to adding details to the foreground structures.
The Process: Creating a Cover Painting (Part 1)
Before each book can be prepared for print, a cover illustration must be created. A lot of the time, this happens well in advance of a tangible release date. While the illustrative work for some of my other books has been largely character-focused, for this project I wanted to try something a little different.
Digital Sketchbook: Various
For those of you following my Instagram account, you probably know I recently purchased Wacom Intuos tablet/pen in an attempt to work on more digital pieces. As someone whose spent multiple decades as an exclusively-physical media person, this took time, like relearning how to walk. In that time, I've pulled together a handful of various character and creature sketches.
Fifth Era Sketchbook
Unlike my previous books, where there was sizable effort to produce support artwork as part of the world-building process, the development of The Fifth Era of Man took on a more minimalist approach. While there are no character illustrations, a small batch of sketches were created for some of the armor and weaponry found in the story.
The Art of TFEOM: Cover Illustration
For my first stand-alone title, The Fifth Era of Man, it was my thought to try something different for the cover artwork. Unlike previous books, I shied away from a more traditional painting, instead choosing to do a mixture of hand-drawn ink on paper and digital color.
The Art of APOF: Jehn and Hollistier
To complete the four-piece series of character illustrations for A Prison of Flesh, we have Jehn Brumal and Hollistier Thabies.
The Art of APOF: Corella and Brigant
Much like what was created for Not Gods But Monsters, I put together a series of character illustrations for a few of the major players in A Prison of Flesh. This time around, though, I did add an extra touch of color to set these apart from the original works.
The Art of APOF: Various
While a lot of the ground work (both art-wise and as a part of world-building) was done for the series during the development of Book 1, I did manage to pull together a few concept sketches for A Prison of Flesh. This includes drawings for the boats and Corella's favorite figurehead.
The Art of APOF: Cover Painting
For those familiar with the painting for the first book, you'll quickly notice that the cover for Book 2 is a slight departure on multiple fronts. This is for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that it's smaller (16x20 versus 22x30) and painted on board rather than printmaking paper. I did this largely for my convenience. Also, since most of my earlier works are done the same way, it provided a bit of familiarity.
The Art of NGBM: Jehn and Kyote
To finish out the series of stylized character depictions for Not Gods But Monsters, here are the character illustrations for Jehn and Kyote.
