Almost Final Cover

I think my favorite aspect of self-publishing is choosing the artist I want to work with. Everything else is not going as smoothly, but working with Dennis is such a pleasure. I mean how many people go to the trouble of showing their thought processes in creating a nice composition like he does? See below:

BANE @banedarkart.com

Here, Dennis shows the movement of the image, how everything swirls to point to the main protagonist, the anti-shero, Ella Bandita. I especially like the way he's aligned her hands with her leg, the Wanderer's eye, and his hand. Although this image of the Wanderer isn't exactly compatible with his character sketch, I like it that we can see him and it's close enough. The illustration has a nice flow and I love the way the eye is drawn into the image. He did a great job of getting back the basic integrity of his original composition.

BANE@banedarkart.com

Here, he went back to her original stance, which I liked in his first drafts. But here, her leg doesn't seem as muscular. She doesn't seem as solid in her stance. He reminded me in the original draft, she wasn't completely anatomically correct yet. I also want the swirl to be brighter.

BANE@banedarkart.com

Here, he emphasizes her lunged pose because it makes her more dynamic, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. He also uses a green swirl of magic because it's brighter and easier to do than a multi-color swirl. It turns out there's also not enough room at the top of the image to fit the title, which is rather long: "Ella Bandita and the Wanderer." There's more than enough room for my name at the bottom, however. After a few adjustments, I'm putting it to a vote on my Facebook page.

But I'm loving how this is turning out!