Editing Break

I’m currently working on edits for the third draft of Book 1 of my new Sci-Fi/ Romance series. This afternoon I found that my brain was getting kind of mushy and I decided to do some drawing to give myself a break.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am also contemplating the book’s cover art right now. When contemplating a book cover there are many questions you need to ask yourself. Of course, you want the cover to be germane to the book (although this isn’t always followed) and you also want it to be appealing to prospective readers. But that’s just where you start. A lot of consideration goes into book cover design and many times it takes a while before you get the right idea lodged in the right part of your brain. I’m at the stage now where I’m taking a look at some of my favorite contemporary illustrators for inspiration.

Charles Vess is a prolific fantasy and comic book artist who’s been around for quite a while. He’s also a particular favorite of mine. Today, I decided to copy one of his pieces in order to better understand both the construction of his people (or centaurs in this case) and his use of color.

Here’s the result next to the original image.

I suspect that I'll be continuing to look at Vess' work for some time to come. I can tell that he has much to teach me. :-)

After finishing the copy of Vess’ centaur, I decided to have a bit of fun and do it again in a more Thelwell-like style. The result is below. I like her, what she lacks in elegance she certainly makes up for in "go-to-itness."

"Centaur pony girl" - pen & ink and colored pencil