Making the Cover of Book 4 (Patreon)

Here's a quick behind the scenes look at making the cover of my 4th book. Typically I start with a title based on the comic that will be featured on the title page. Initially I liked this comic:

and I planned to title the book "Always ready with Cardboard Crack." I then sketched this artwork for the cover:

After trying a few different sketches, I didn't really feel this concept was dynamic enough. The cover should at least catch people's eyes a little more than this. So I went back and looked for another comic to base this cover around. I eventually came to this one:

with the title instead being "Cardboard Crack until the day I die." Here's the sketch I came up with:

I thought this would be fun to draw because I could include a lot of my favorite cards from Magic's past as Easter eggs in the art. Inking and shading over the sketch, I finally had this cover art:

Initially, I thought I was done with the cover. But the more I looked at this artwork, the less I liked it. It was still too static of a pose. So again I went back to the drawing board and sketched more ideas.

In the end, I was able to keep the cards in the artwork, but I made the pose of the figure more dramatic. The final result was:

How many of the cards on the final cover can you identify?

I hope this gives you a better idea of the work that can go into a cover. Even though I'm just drawing stick figures, a lot of thought can go into the design and composition. Thanks for reading!