A to Z Blogger Challenge: B is for Breakdown

B is for Breakdown.

Here is a basic BREAKDOWN of creating most of my covers.

 (using one of my favorite covers as an example)

 As you can see, I usually start my covers with a few different images. Sometimes they work and other times I have to scrap what I was working on and return to the drawing board. Luckily, I had a very strong mental image of what I wanted to do and I was able to find the images that I needed rather easily. I then adjusted the scale and masked off parts of the images I did not need to better position them into something that resembles a rough draft.

Once I have all the positioning where I feel looks the best I start doing the clean cuts. I usually start from the background and work forward.  After everything is in place and all the masks are cleaned up I work on adjusting the lighting to bring it all together. This is a process of manipulating the shadows, midtones and highlights throughout the entire cover. When the lighting is finished I usually start on the overall coloring of the cover. This is when the cover usually starts to "POP".  Then comes the title and author name. I like to match the coloring of the text to with that of some of the more dominant  yet somewhat obscure colors within the artwork to bring the two elements together.

After the text is finished and positioned, I give it a final inspection, clean up anything that needs it and off it goes to the author/publisher for approval.

Thanks for stopping by!