FALL: The Art of the Book…

Howdy folks: 

As an old school fan of fantasy, I was always delighted to find a book that had a handful of illustrations, the most prominent in memory being, of course, the wonderful work of John Howe and Alan Lee on The Lord of the Rings.

Though we devour words, an occasional work of art inside a fantasy tale is such a delight.

I was lucky enough to hook up with renown UK fantasy artist Sandara Tang for the cover to FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar (The Fallen Trilogy: Book One). To be honest it was an existing piece I saw in her portfolio, but it was perfect for the book.

We worked out a licensing deal and I tweaked for my purposes. I needed it to be a bit brighter to make the text pop and make sure the cover itself didn't wash out as a thumbnail for the various sites. As you can see by the finished cover, I also flipped it so the text flows into Lucifer's body and you're not fighting where your eye gets pulled.

 I love her work so much that I commissioned some original artwork for the book. It was hard picking a handful of scenes to illustrate. I didn't wan them to be all action. So I tried to find a good mix. It was very difficult as my wish list o f must have scenes grew to about a dozen.

In the end I selected 4-5. Here are a sample of a few of the roughs she sent me for approval. With my comments.

 The Mark of Cain. In the story it's described as a silver circle. In the early ebooks, it was a clip art type thingy with a circle and a dot in the center. ZZZZZzzzzzz. So I asked her to give it some flair. i didn't give her any notes on this as I though ti was perfect. Note a touch of asymmetry for the left and right hand sides of the designs.  You're looking what just might be my next tattoo.

Although I love this one of Honeybone hanging from the Tree of Life in Eden, there was some miscommunication. The pose, hair, and clothes have been completely redone, but this was certainly an impressive piece. And remember these are just QUICK SKETCHES to get the composition down. I've since seen the new one and it's killer. Oh boy…

And then we have this one….

This is Lucifer returning home. That's Michael in the BG getting pissed and next to him is our gimpy angel Duma. We went back and forth on a few details. I pointed out we needed his dagger, which is key throughout the story. She added a sword which I thought was great. I don't know how I missed it on the first go around.

I'm excited to see the final art work and get it into the book this autumn. I  may even post a piece here.

In the meantime… just $1.01 for the rest of the summer.

FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar (The Fallen Trilogy: Book One)

Thanks,
DSH

 DSH is the author of the postmodern literary novel FOUNTAIN*  as well as two genre books Cloning Christ and FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar as DS Hay (clever, huh?).


He is also a Contributing Editor for Digital Americana Magazine.

And is currently co-authoring the Civil Rights play THE MARKER with David Barr III and Glen Jeffers, slated to premiere Feb 2012. david@davidscotthay.com