“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” and Book 2 “The Black Bearer” By David J. Normoyle.

This is the first and second part of an exciting young adult fantasy trilogy for which I am producing the covers.

Obviously, when designing a series we have to think about how we are going to keep a consistent feel throughout all of the covers. They need to look like part of a series while at the same time looking exciting and new. Not as simple as it sounds.

David gave me the synopsis of the books and after some discussion we decided to go for a kind of classic film poster format, featuring the main characters and locations that appear in the particular books. It’s also a good idea to hint at the kind of adventure the reader will experience when reading the books.

The intention when designing covers like this is to create a kind of film trailer effect on the viewer, leaving them with a mind filled with excitement and questions they want to know the answers for.

Weapons of Power book 1 cover art © Keith Draws

With that in mind, it’s essential to achieve a well-balanced layout, as well as a pleasing tonal and color balance, in order to draw the viewers eye in.

Weapons of Power Book 2 Cover art © Keith Draws

David designed and provided me with the excellent“Weapons of Power” Logo for the series. It’s always important to ensure that the space allotted for title and Author is going to work well and be readable at all viewing sizes. Segregation of the cover using the rule of thirds or as I did for these covers, the more complex (but also more aesthetically pleasing) Golden ratios is always a good way to determine the best location for the Typography.

The color can really set the mood and it also works on many other subconscious levels. The use of complementary colors balancing out across the layout, and the tonal contrast variations in these paintings all help to draw the eye in creating depth movement and flow across the image. (more about color here)

Weapons of Power book 2 cover art © Keith Draws

Finally when it comes to the actual image (especially for this kind of genre) it can be useful to implement quite a lot of detail in order to keep the viewer engaged and another trick is to try to add glimpses in to landscape of the world in the fantasy that create the desire to enter the image and see more. Although these covers are paintings it’s quite possible to do this with a photo montage and not near as much skill is required.

David’s  Website is  http://www.davidjnormoyle.com/ and facebook is http://www.facebook.com/DavidJNormoyle

Prints and posters of the paintings are available here:

“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” Front and back

“Weapons of Power”, Book 1 “The Silver Portal” Front only

“Weapons of Power”, Book 2 “The Black Bearer” Front and back

“Weapons of Power”, Book 2 “The Black Bearer” Front only
Thanks to http://skydancer-stock.deviantart.com/ for the great reference of Wizards.
Thanks to Marcus Ranum who provides Great Stock photography FOC on DeviantArt which I used for Reference;
Also Thanks to the Model Laura Preciado who posed for the character of
Suma – the woman with the Axe.