The Cover Hunt – Part 4

Surprisingly fast the next draft arrived.

As you can see, the hovering head of the Other is back. My prince now has his coat of arms, «In sable, a dragon passant, on a field of gold», on his tunic. He looks awfully small though, all of a sudden. “Get rid of the rocks on the bottom of the drawing,” my editor said. “I need those to put my titles on,” I replied. “There’s the title of the book, the title of the trilogy, and the title of the whole series. And I’d like my name to be there as well.” My editor, in a flash of brilliance suggested, “Put them over his feet. It doesn’t matter that they’re partly covered.” That actually made sense, and it would allow us to get rid of the strip on the left which was just filled with background.

I mailed Okita, and this came back:

Much better. The head of the Other is less gigantic as well.

Next I wanted the castle to look less as if made out of concrete.

You can see a stone here and there. Good. Time to concentrate on the face of my main character.

A lot of mails and drafts were exchanged.

Here his hair is a bit longer and the color is lighter. The sour trait around his mouth is softened. He has blue eyes now. In the books they are described as gray-blue or steel-blue. In this enlarged picture they are bright blue, but in the format most people will see them I think the color is right.

His mouth still didn’t seem right though. Again a very patient Okita kept adjusting the image until we came as near as I think we could get.

The general idea is of the warlord looking out in the distance toward the gathering storm. He’s supposed to be calm, confident yet apprehensive. Watchful and calculating. For me this was it. Yes, his hair could still be longer and blonder. We could have experimented with a middle parting. But for me this was close enough. The more I looked at him, the more he grew on me.

So I gave the final go-ahead. This is the result.

On this scale a lot of the more finicky details get lost, as you can see, but I hope the readers will like the final result and that the cover somehow gives an idea of the story.

The only thing that remains to be done is the lettering.

But you will see that before the end of the week when I announce the publication of this book.