Category: Art

Work-in-Progress WIPWednesday Book Cover Art Makeover – FASHION FRENCHIES Cover Makeover: Spine Design before and after

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For as much work as I put into illustrating a cover, the truth is that books spend the majority of their lives as a spine. So I didn’t want to skimp here! I wanted the spine to be as cute as the cover.

I took a lot of inspiration from those old Disney VHS tapes…you know, with the character portrait on the side? I knew I needed that. But I wasn’t sure how to organize all the information a reader would need (the name of the series, the number of the book, author, title etc.)

BEFORE

First, it was a hot mess of fonts. The reader-desired info was on there, but not in a beautiful fashion.

Version one of a book spine: there's a lot of horizontal white text on red and a cute French bulldog decked out like Super Dave Osborne (on a blue background).

AFTER

The next day, I thought a little more about how it should be organized, and came up with this:

Final version of the Fashion Frenchies 2 book spine: The author name, cute French bulldog decked out like Super Dave Osborne (popping out of a ring), series name, and series number are oriented the traditional way, while the title is oriented sideways, with little stars surrounding it. The spine is mostly white text on red, except for the series number, which is blue text on white and on a retro-looking shape

Maybe this is only interesting for book geeks…but I’m SUPER PROUD of how this spine design turned out!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday Book Cover Art Makeover – FASHION FRENCHIES Cover Makeover: FINISHED fancy vest!

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Here’s Marty’s final outfit for Fashion Frenchies 1: Love Potion Commotion!

In the Fashion Frenchies series, Marty the French bulldog loves getting dressed up because it brings smiles to all his fans who follow his mom’s dog fashion blog!Completed dog clothing illustration. The smiling white French bulldog now wears a pink tuxedo vest and short-sleeved white shirt! Nicely inked and digitally colored. He stands against a plain blue background so I can do a full cover reveal later.

I’ve completed one other costume for Marty and one other costume for his mom, Vivian, since finishing this one! My foundational work is paying off and once I draw the costume, the actual finishing work comes together quite quickly!

Kickstarter coming this spring! I hope you’ll join me for it!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday Book Cover Art Makeover – FASHION FRENCHIES Cover Makeover: fancy vest!

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The past few weeks, I did minor adjustments to the prototype cover, and I’m finally happy with it. Now I can move on to specific costumes!

For Love Potion Commotion!, Fashion Frenchies Book 1, I decided to put Marty in a pink tuxedo vest with bow tie! I’ll clean up the inks digitally and color it so I can add it to the book cover proper.

 

 


Scan of a dog clothing drawing. The French bulldog was printed out in a light value. The costume was roughed over the printout in red Col-erase pencil (which can barely be seen) and inked with black Sharpie marker.

 

Work-in-Progress Wednesday Book Cover Art Makeover – FASHION FRENCHIES Cover Makeover: ruby red!

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More progress on my FASHION FRENCHIES book cover rebranding!

I took some time on a printout to rough out a simpler #background (a la BEWITCHED) before working on it digitally. There, I discovered I had room for a sewing machine, which lead to a roll of fabric. I thought it looked nice so I’m going to work on it more!

I think the characters really pop against this color, but I’m wondering if it’s too dark a color an uplifting fantasy comedy. What do you think?

Hopefully I can move on to the outfits soon. 🙂

 

"Fashion Frenchies" series book cover. Background is now a ruby red-pink cover. A smiling French bulldog, inked with flat colors, now stands on a simple table built of flat vector shapes. Next to him is a simple sewing machine with some fabric on it. Behind him, a sassy fashion grandmain a simple placeholder black dress stands with one arm akimbo. She appears to be throwing a roll of magical fabric with her other hand. Simple cabinets are indicated at the top, providing backdrop for the series and title text in a retro script font: FASHION FRENCHIES BOOK 1: LOVE POTION COMMOTION.

WIP Wednesday Book Cover Art – FASHION FRENCHIES Cover Makeover

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More rebranding work on the FASHION FRENCHIES series book covers. (I wanna release FASHION FRENCHIES 2: THE POOCH SALUTE! in Spring 2025 and thought I’d redo the cover to FASHION FRENCHIES 1: LOVE POTION COMMOTION! while I was at it)

I buckled down last week and inked both characters. I’m keeping simple fill for colors–because these are now “paper dolls”! They’ll have different themed outfits for each book cover!

I also bought a new typeface (font) for the titles, after another set didn’t work out (I had to get a refund!)

And I’m working on a series logo (which is currently kicking my butt, yikes!). You might see a progress bit on it next week.

Enjoy!

FASHION FRENCHIES series book cover, work in progress. Background is still puce (grey-purpley). A smiling French Bulldog, now fully inked with flat colors, now stands on a simple table built of flat vector shapes. Behind him, a newly-inked, fully-colored sassy elderly lady in a simple placeholder black dress stands with arm akimbo. Shelves are indicated at the top with darker rectangles, and neon purple lines roughly indicate fabric rolls that will go up there.

New dragon art for a smokin’ book birthday!

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Book birthday image - a stack of books topped by a party hat. Photo generously provided by by massonstock.myportfolio.com

Happy book birthday to DEBUTS AND DRAGONS (2019), a fun underdog story about a drab dragon! Here’s some art I’m working on of one of the characters, Pinnacle Smokebelcher:

 

Digitally colored sketch of a lantern-jawed red dragon with blue spikes. Work in progress.

He’s not a major character or anything, but with that name I couldn’t resist doodling him! Read DEBUTS AND DRAGONS today and see a ton more weird dragon names!

Get DEBUTS AND DRAGONS

Celebrate BULLDOGS ARE BEAUTIFUL DAY with fun digital wallpaper!

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April 21st is Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day!

So I made some digital wallpapers to celebrate the breed! Inspired by my FASHION FRENCHIES book series, FETCHING FRENCHIES (hand-drawn by yours truly) combines the cuteness of Frenchie faces with a fashionable and fun pattern! Comes in 12 color variations for device and desktop, including “Puppy Vuitton”, “Funky Freeze Dark” and “Goldscaled”.

FETCHING FRENCHIES sampler thumbnail

Get it today from my Gumroad store!

Know someone who likes Frenchies? Please share this post with them so they can enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Queen!

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Today’s the Queen’s birthday (costar of my science fantasy STEEL CITY, VEILED KINGDOM), so I thought I’d post some of my drawings of her to celebrate.

She’s been around a LOOOONG while so I have a lot of art of her. Here’s two newer sketches of her, a detailed charcoal portrait I did of her back in The Day, and an equally ancient 8-bit? 16-bit? pixel sprite (not animated).

Of course, this is just the way *I* imagine her…your mileage may vary, and that’s A-OK by me!

(Click images to embiggen.)

 

Elegant sketch of the QueenQueen with her nervous grin-that-isn't-a-grinCharcoal portrait of the Queen from STEEL CTIY, VEILED KINGDOMPixel art of the Queen

Cover Makeover: THE BUREAUCRAT

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As one of the first short stories I published, The Bureaucrat got the best cover I could make at the time (2017). And while I still like the vibe the original acid green cover brings to this Twilight Zone-esque tale of just deserts, I thought it was time for an update that brought the human(??) element to the fore. And thanks to artist Christian Bunyan, I’ve now got a new cover that ups the creep factor by ten!

Here’s the before:

The Bureaucrat (Cover)

And the creeptastic AFTER!

Cover to THE BUREAUCRAT - A creepy office worker stands grinning with blank eyes in front of a wall of spooky blank eyes.

The Bureaucrat: An Uncanny Satire is available now in ebook (digital retailers) and paperback (Amazon).

Click here to read an excerpt here at Pixelvania Publishing.