Fanning the Hammer

Early concepts for Lenny’s most recent. These were fun but didn’t quit cut it like this one.

I was told a jet attacks a dam. This is where my mind goes. Summarily rejected.

I really was hoping the publisher would go for this bizarre circle of women. I had nothing but pleasure fucking this photo up. However, it really didn’t reflect the three plays as much as I was trying to convince myself it was. This technique however is going to show up somewhere else, I promise me.

There were so many good ideas here.

Early concepts for this cover were a little heavy handed, though I really like this approach and will definitely use this technique for something else. Elements of the final cover came through here as well, and as striking as the brown, fur-textured cover is, it needed more elements to tie into the plot.

Prior to developing the theme/brand for all her covers I’m creating for her now, I was dealing with this title as a stand-alone design. The silhouette idea came through at the end put we ended up using a different figure and background texture.

Early more literal ideas I started at first. I liked them but they weren’t the tone we really needed. Started using some vector art that led to the final cover.

The author at first wanted to see an idea that had a Carl Hiaasan feel. Glad we didn’t follow this through.

Early ideas for this book that didn’t quite get the idea across. Top one is especially bad.

Found these old comps I did in the 90s. Not too shabby.

Client had some definite ideas one how he wanted this to look. There were some other ideas I’m saving for another another project.

Some samples of illustrations I’ve done for various projects.

Some of the collage work I’ve done for various titles.

You’re probably aware at this point that this book is called Supernatural Texas, a project I invested considerable time into the comping phase, and in response was sent a piece of bbq vector art to use on the cover. I can dig that. I’m no so hung up on my ideas that someone can’t give me good directives towards a solution. Sometimes that’s just how it has to be.

Hoping to earn some extra cash while their mother’s out of town for the summer, Claire’s twin boys have no idea what they’ve done when they rent rooms to the stooped, little old lady, middle-aged Indian woman and pimply-faced teenager. Returning unexpectedly, Claire knows immediately who these three truly are and, because of her genetic gift as an afterlife coach, is the only one who can see through their façades.

Second book I’ve worked on for Keith. This one a mystery set during the Vietnam War, which is to explain the variety of subtitles the author chose to use and alter during the process. The cover he picked was this idea that was unrelated to anything he’d wanted. I just worked with some image and texture, the soldier itself a bronze statue image. I myself find things compelling that are inherently inexplicable, so if I were to take all the text off this cover, I still would have wondered what it was and taken a closer look at it. And that’s a pretty good metric for a compelling cover. Is the image alone worth the price of admission? We’re at a stage in the game now where we’re bombarded with image without context. If it’s pretty or sexy, funny or disturbing, we gravitate towards something because of the command to look.

Reedsy contacted me about helping reworking this project from the author’s original package to give some top shelf-appeal for marketing. So I started with something safe and academic and worked my way up. Anything Islam is a critical subject for edification, and something I strongly believe in is tolerance and understanding, not knee-jerk responses or repeating televised talking points for lack of investigation—prior to contempt—for something not agreed with. I am not the world’s greatest person for tolerance and understanding, but I have worked hard to ensure that I’m consistent with “thinking about my thinking.” If I don’t understand something, inspiring fear of concern, then I better find out more about it for my own well-being and peace of mind.