Book covers

It's been a long journey bit the new designs for my book covers are nearly ready. I can't show them to you yet. This isn't any attempt at showmanship - it's just that I don't have them in format that Blogger will take as an upload.

The Horsepower Whisperer was pretty good out of the box. Beck and I were pretty happy with that one but Beck suggested breaking up the cloudless sky with some, well, clouds. She said she liked the original sky that I'd created because it was more graphic. So I had a go at some clouds and found that clouds are hard.

I can't remember drawing or painting clouds realistically before. I feel I've come on some way since the time when I drew the first illustration of The Wormton Lamb. To cut along story short i messed up the original painting with sub-standuard clouds. Fortunately, I subsequent attempt produced clouds that looked more cloudy and Beck, who has the technology, was able to splice my new clouds behind the dancing lamb. It's amazing what she can do with her IT.

So now the cover illustration for The Wormton Lamb exists only in cyber space.

Beck and I now have a few minor tweaks to make. It's something you can get dangerously anal about she said. I never considered the dangers of being anal before but have to concede that this could be a possibility. If I am to live with these cover designs then I have to be entirely happy with them and not see improvements every time I look at them. I know nobody else will look at them so critically and that most people thought the originals looked okay. But I want them to be as good a s I can possibly get them and not have these niggling little faults for a long time from now. I suppose i want future compliant covers, even though I can feel my standards are constantly on the rise.

Once the minor tweaks have been made, Beck'll produce some jpg files for uploading onto Amazon but I'll previe wthem here first. Watch this space.