Disclaimer:
The creative process, even in artistic fields, is often not a case of sudden magnificent inspiration, but rather the end result of cold analysis of what works or doesn't work, calculated experimentation, and iterative design. If you are someone that doesn't want to know how the proverbial sausage is made, I caution you against reading further.
Number three, Cause of Death, the definitive middle child of the planned five book series. It isn’t a debut of new characters in a new setting from a new author like Monster of the Dark. It doesn’t experiment with subliminal communication and psychological complexity like The Rogue Wolf. Nor does it have the grand “set piece” moments like book four (title to be revealed). Now don’t get me wrong, Cause of Death is a great story in its own right—frankly I consider it the most fun of the five. But from the standpoint of its production, both in the text and the cover, there isn’t really much to say. The entire process was straightforward from beginning to end.
Once again, I used Tom Edwards to design the cover. The initial idea was as follows:
As for cover ideas, this book is more mil-sci fi than the previous, specifically spaceship battles and the like. There is a character I'd like to emphasize who wears a mirror-like mask that covers the entire face. Similar in concept to this:
I would like that mask in close up, much like this picture (no body visible), but I'd like the mask to be reflecting fire. I'd like the background to be a starfield with two starships blasting away at each other. The exact look and positioning I'll leave to you, but I would like it to be apparent that it is a "David and Goliath" type struggle...perhaps one of the ships is so large that it is only partially visible, but once again you're the artist. I'd also like two starfighters flying by in formation. I'm a bit of a jet nerd so I'm a bit more particular about them. Sorry, I can't draw (made a laughable attempt to show you what I mean), but put simply, take the forward swept wings of an X-29:
Combined with the forward fuselage of a F/A-18 (basically from where the leading edge of the wing meets the fuselage on forward):
Note: the images of both aircraft are presented in platform, even though they are of different orientations, to help the artist
No tail control surfaces please, but twin engined with a nice long (dramatic) exhaust trail.
If you’ll allow me an aircraft geek out for a moment. While I didn’t specifically direct the artist in what exactly the fighter craft looks like, the Banshee starfighter is easily the most detailed vehicle in the series. To use the F/A-18 pictured above as an example of what I mean, you’ll notice two small trapezoidal protrusions just ahead of the wings on the fuselage. They were added to the aircraft shortly after the start of production to direct airflow around the vertical tails to improve fatigue life. Most readers aren’t interested in the extreme technical details of a machine in a story devoted to character study. The author, however, is aware and accounts for such often unmentioned elements in the background.
Anyway, Mr. Edwards asked additional questions regarding how the battle would be depicted in terms of foreground, background, etc. The following three roughs were presented:
Mr. Edwards had a personal preference for image 2 and 3, which I agreed. Between the two I preferred “2” the most. I was asked about colors of the text, but I left it up to the artist.
A refinement of the background image and text. I requested that there’d be a fire for the ring surrounding the “3” above the series title, in keeping with the thematic theming of the number with the story itself.
Further refinement with the inclusion of the battle itself and the requested starfighters.
The final image, art only. Though not requested, I do like the subtle skull in the mask. I intend to include that theme for the cover of book five, when we get there. Until then, this series of posts continues with the cover reveal and title reveal in the production of the cover for book four.