I'm very excited to announce that Conjuring Cal won the Best Ebook Cover in the Fantasy/Futuristic/Off World Erotic Ebook Cover category of the Night Owl Romance Awards 2008.
Yay Cal!!
I must say it's a thrill to see a cover acknowledged. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into a cover, although sometimes it may not appear so. I've always felt that Cover artists hold the Bridesmaid roll in the publishing industry. It's our job to make the Author stand out amongst the crowd by providing them with the most eyecatching cover we can.
Many Authors can rely on their name alone to sell books but for the remainder the cover can be their greatest asset. It is what catches the readers eye. Piques their interest enough to pick up the book and read the blurb on the back (or in this electronic age, click on the cover to read an excerpt).
If we can achieve that then we've done our job. The rest is up to the Author.
I love this cover. It's definitely up there as one of my fav's. I've been dying to do something like this for a while and I will admit that it was heavily inspired by Denise Rossetti's - Gift of the Goddess cover by the incredible Syneca. I added a few brushes to give it that magical feel. I mucked around a bit with the dragon, all the while berating myself for not having done some more drawing/painting lessons. I ended up resorting to some dragon stock available at DA and in the vain attempt to not take credit for someone else's work, I maniped it to add another head. As required by the story.
I added his hair, again with brushes and was surprised that it was allowed through. I didn't think it looked quite real enough - but hey! I'm not complaining LOL.
Oh, I so need to practice my hair and painting skills. I also really need to start making some of my own brushes. DA has been a fantastic resource, but I'm hesitant in mentioning it because I don't want just anyone going along and thinking they can take things for themselves. There are rules set up by the owners of the stock there. Some allow commercial use, others not.
I guess now that I have Illustrator and CS3 I have less reason to say I can't. Now it all really just comes back to time. Time to focus. Time to experiment. It's frustrating to turn around 3-4 hours later and have nothing to show for it. Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a winge post. So Hurrah! Conjuring Cal has been released :D
Ooh .. quick update on the So You Think You Can Dance AUSTRALIA. It's down to the final 4 and Rhys is one of them. Yay! for Rhys LOL. Love him to death even if he does bat for the other team. He danced with Jack on Sunday night. Jack is the fav to win the comp. He's good. Damn good, but I still gravitate to Rhys. Anyway, here they are (Rhys is the one on the right of the screen, slightly to the front):
Woohoo!! What a start to '09!
