Infinite Dark Cover Art (Artist's Brief Sketch)
Added 2021-01-27 17:00:03 +0000 UTCI've sent my brief for the cover art to the excellent David Sondered. David and his studio is a busy enterprise, these days, with lots of high-end commercial work and it's a pleasure to work with him.
I've known David for the best part of a decade, meeting him first on the old Ordo Illuminatus forum - a Warhammer fan-art page - where we were already blown away by his talent back then and he's only got better since.
I try to be a good client, giving a clear, coherent brief and letting the artist get on with it, but I have occasionally forced myself to be awkward and difficult, demanding last-minute changes in response to shifts in the setting or story. David is always good about taking it in good humour and billing me extra when I deserve it! I really hate doing it to artists (I'm doing it to the miniature sculptor, right now), but life is a learning process and, sometimes, the me who is going to pay for the art has learned things that the me who commissioned it didn't know.
Also, I'm pretty stoked with this latest sketch. I don't have either the skill or patience to do what David does, but I do like spending time with pencil and paper and occasionally pen to articulate my vision in visual form.
Anyway, as you can see, I honoured the results of last month's poll and the principle figure is a black African woman, but we've also got a Western European man representing CL1 and an older man who is supposed to be either Han Chinese or Mongolian representing CL2. There are nods here to Star Wars, Firefly, The Expanse, Star Trek, Honor Harrington and other well-known sci-fi properties, so I hope folks like it.
Comments
We'll see what the artist thinks. A little "dead space" (no pun intended) is very useful, though, when I want to use the art in advertising, so I have somewhere to put good review quotes, star ratings and big, fat "Adamantine Seller" badges... (although odds are looking good that I'll be publishing independently by the time Infinite Dark is anywhere even close to that kind of success)
Precinct Omega
2021-01-28 09:31:38 +0000 UTCI feel like there needs to be something in the centre above the woman’s head. At first I was thinking an android character standing behind them, but if the image fades to stars then maybe a starship out in space.
Dave Knowles
2021-01-28 09:09:28 +0000 UTCI would have thought so, too, except in a search for "old Chinese man" about fifty percent of the results looked like this.
Precinct Omega
2021-01-28 07:12:40 +0000 UTCIs the CL2 guy maybe a little too stereotypical? I feel like his facial structure alone is enough (maybe add some cool faded tattoos to his head), but the fu manchu seems over the top.
Erik W
2021-01-27 22:50:29 +0000 UTC
