Live for Today & Danielle and the Wolf

COMING SOON TO TOTAL-E-BOUND!!!

Live for Today by Carol Lynne is the 12th and final book of the Campus Cravings Series. This book revisits the original two characters from Book 1 - Coach.

The artist request form mentioned a forest cabin and the original two characters. Unfortunately there were limited stock images of the original two characters and they weren't that appealing. So I decided to go with the 'lop their heads off' approach with a couple of brawny and nicely stacked guys.

As for the cabin in the woods. Well it turned out to be a timber Mansion in the woods LOL. Very different from the original image I sent over. Think 1950's hunting shack LOL!

Either way. I'm happy with the result and am kinda sad to see the last of this series.

Thanks for trusting me enough to do all 12 of these covers, Carol!


Danielle and the Wolf by Wendy Stone.

I really enjoyed doing this cover. There's always something 'liberating' about doing a fantasy cover. I guess it's a genre that I am passionate about and where I feel most comfortable using textures.

The castle in the background was the image I wanted to work with as the storyline had a white castle that loomed over the village. There was mention of forests and wolves and of course our ever gorgeous Hero.

The black wolf was easy enough to find. I upped the contrast and lowered the brightness of the image to make him appear darker. I've recently realised that the Brightness/Contrast function is an extremely useful tool. I will find myself using it in almost every cover I do these days.

I played around with a few different Hero's and we finally settled on this one. Then I just had to fit the wolf's head in so that it wasn't obscured by the Title and was able to be seen against the dark background.

I used a stock image of alpine forest tree tops as the texture which I used over the castle image. You can see a hint of them in the dark bottom corner if you look close enough.

Theron's Return

COMING SOON TO TOTAL-E-BOUND!!!

Theron's Return by Carol Lynne is Book 11 in the Campus Cravings series.

The covers in this series, as I have noted before, are all very much the same. Just a change of images.

A bit of cutting and pasting, juggling of images, etc. The hardest part is searching for the right images.

This one had a Psychiatrist in it, from memory. Hence the leather sofa at the top. With the top image I usually try to give some hint of the storyline. While the bottom image centers on the Characters.

I used a total of four stock images in this cover.

Hershies Kiss

Hershies Kiss coming soon to TEB!!

Hershies Kiss by Carol Lynn is book 10 in the Campus Cravings series.

This was a pretty basic cover. Again it sticks to the series theme. From memory one of the characters is a Chef or at least likes cooking. Hence the pots at the top.

The two fellas say it all really. Simple cut and paste and a bit of contrast balance and shadowing.

I hear that this book is pretty hot!

Got myself another book to read. This time it's Damien by Jacquelyn Frank. The Nightwalker Series. I so easily get sucked into these series LOL! I'm almost finished it - of course. Books don't last long in my grasp. I'm hoping that by the time I finish this one, the next in the Sookie Stackhouse series will be available in Paperback. Although I doubt that will be the case by tomorrow LOL!

Once I've read that book though I will have to wait a good 12 months before the next book in any of these series come out. Actually, no I lie. Noah comes out in September 08, but that's in the US. Although I could pre-order it I guess. We'll see.

I think I'll be pretty busy in between books though. I really do need to set myself up with a desk diary so I know what I'm doing these days. That includes fitting in housework around covers, computer time and reading LOL! I really do need to set aside quiet time for my reading though. I often find I'm reading my book whilst trying to get the kids breakfast or when I'm cooking dinner. I'm so impatient when it comes to my books. Still, it would be better if I could concentrate without the constant interruptions. I'm sure I'd enjoy the books even more.

A Bikers Vow

Another cover has hit the TEB 'coming soon' page.
























A Bikers Vow by Carol Lynne is Book 9 in the Campus Cravings series.

This cover required a Harley Davidson on the cover. However, as many of the Bikes available as stock tend to remove the badges (for copyright reasons I presume), it was a bit of a guessing game. I ended up with something that looked 'Harley-ish'. As a reader looking at a cover, a bike is a bike is a bike LOL! I get the idea. If it isn't a Harley I don't think I'd throw the book down in disgust.

Aaaanyway, the Tatts and Piercings were a big part of this cover. Thank goodness the Tattooed male came as is. I really only had to add his long hair and nipple ring. Not that you can really see that. The little fellow at the back was more tricky. He had to be 'small' and slim but well muscled. He also had to have nipple rings and a belly-button piercing. Not much thought process used in these covers as I'm limited by the series template. Just a lot of fiddling to get the characters to look right.

Been a busy month for covers. My publisher/editor at TEB is heading off to a conference so I needed to have the months covers back to her early. I've only got one to go, so I'm on track. I also had to re-do some older covers that will be going to print very soon. Originally I used to create three separate files (cover, spine, back) instead of the one cover-spread that I do now. So I just had to pull all the parts together into one file. It was all pretty straight forward thank goodness :D

And as you can all see I've been getting my Blogger account back up to date. I think I've worked out the kinks and I've managed to add some personal touches. Thanks so much to Amarinda Jones for helping me with the slideshow!!

I'll be working on some banners that I've promised people once all the covers are out of the way. I haven't forgotten ladies!! :D

Office Advances

Here's the latest cover released at TEB!

Office Advances by Carol Lynne is book 8 in the Campus Craving Series so there's nothing new to the layout. This one is based more in the business sector, hence the city backdrop and the guy's in suits. That's actually Sydney up there - had to support my home town LOL! The guy's were easy enough. All I had to do was add some curly hair to the guy at the front but it's hardly noticeable. Yeah. So after the initial searching for suitable stock that had the guy's giving off the right vibe it all came together rather easily.

Cupid and Karaoke

Two more covers released over at TEB ...

Karaoke at the Tumbleweed by Carol Lynne

Gee, don't you wish all Barmen looked this good?? LOL

This one was needed quite quickly. I had the idea of what I wanted pretty early so it was just a matter of finding the right models. I'd been eyeing these two off for a little while now ... well, one in particular ;), and I'm surprised how well they came together. She was hanging off another fellow but he was wearing too many clothes ;)

Okay, so what have I done here ... I removed the poncy buttons from his cardie and of course added his tatt's and longer hair. I thought she looked a little odd just hanging there with no bottom half so I searched around and found her a hip *rolls eyes*. Yeah, I know I've practically covered it over but I don't like missing body parts ;)

Also her skin was a bit mottled. Actually she looked dead, so I airbrushed a bit of life back into her. I also managed to scratch up a bar/pub background and fussed around with the fonts to get a Neon feel and Voila! Karaoke at the Tumbleweed :D It is a nice change for Carol who usually writes M/M, so I hope she likes it.

The Cupids Kisses covers a couple of short stories - hence the Title & Author. This will cover Dirty Cupid by Lexie Davis, Attitude Adjustment by Bobbie Russell, To Catch a Cassanova by Erika Scott and Redemptions Incubus by Brynn Paulin. The sexy guy with the bow and arrow was pretty straight forward. I went with some rose petals for that Valentines feel. Not one of my better covers but it get's the job done, I guess.

On the count down now. I haven't done any packing. I've been on this computer AAAALLL day. My daughter is thoroughly disgusted with me as she wants to get onto NickJR and play games. Fair dinkum! The house is full of toys. I have one that I'll admit to ;) - my computer. So why am I forever fighting the kids and my husband off the damn thing? It seems that ever since I've become serious about forging a career in Cover Art, which requires endless hours at the computer, all of a sudden everyone else in the household want to get on it? Before I started my cover art no-one came near the bloody thing! Sheesh! Can you tell I'm stressed LOL!

Well, better keep going. Two more covers to try to get done before tonight and then we're off.

Oops .. almost forgot to add that I was interviewed by the lovely Amarinda Jones so go and check out her blog!

Cheers!