"The Sprite and the Gardener" Cover Process (Patreon)

Since the book is officially out today (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I figured it would be a good time to go over the process for choosing and creating the cover illustration! In the coming weeks, I'd also like to share some other behind-the-scenes work (among other non-SatG posts - I promise I'm not rebranding my Patreon as a dedicated page haha!!)

P.S. - If you find yourself wanting to see individual techniques/tools explained in more detail, I have two companion posts that can be used alongside this: this one explains my lineart process (drawing, coloring lines, finishing touches, etc), while this one explains my color process (flatting, shading, adding texture, etc).

1) These are the four sketches I submitted for consideration! I was pretty much free to do what I wanted, as long as I left enough space for the title. Some sketches were more polished than others, because I thought those would be chosen for sure for some reason... but nope! Once the team got together, we ultimately decided on the roughest of the bunch - the image of Wisteria looking up as she's picked up from the azaleas by Elena. We decided that it best represented the book, and it also suggests a key scene within the story. It also frames her face most clearly - eye contact with the viewer is good for covers that are targeted toward younger audiences!

As a side note, when it was chosen, there was a concern that it might remind people of Twilight LOL... so I had to keep this in mind as I moved forward.

2) A better look at the chosen concept!

3) At this point, I started sketching in Paint Tool SAI using the airbrush tool. Since the hands are such a crucial part of the image, I wanted to make sure I got them right, so I sketched them out fully even though I knew a lot of this would get covered up by Wisteria.

4) I lowered the opacity of the hands layer so that I could still see it, but it wouldn't get in the way of my sketching, and added Wisteria and the azaleas. I then set the opacity of the hands layer back to 100% and erased the overlap. This is what it looks like once the two layers are put together! I made sure to break up the silhouette of the hands by having azalea petals overlap them so that it would feel less Twilight-y.

5) I then moved on to inking, which was done in Paint Tool SAI.

6-7) I work in Clip Studio from here on out. I often exclude this step from my process posts because I always delete this layer before I remember to document it, but this is how I tend to rough out colors. For some reason it feels a lot more natural to me than flatting everything first. For this, I wanted the colors to be bright and warm, and since it's going to be printed I had to make sure that the colors were CMYK-compliant. On a new layer, I then flatted the colors cleanly. (Once the colors were down, I also noticed a few lines that I wanted to alter slightly.)

8) Now I start coloring the lines! To keep up the warm color scheme, I mostly utilize red and dark reddish purple. This immediately softens up the image and adds a bit of depth.

9) This is where I add the finishing touches. I add pastel purple shadows to the hair for a bit of definition, some subtle highlights to her cloak, some bright highlights to her eyes, and then, using Clip Studio's "Tone Scraping" brush, I airbrush a light texture to her face, the hands, and the centers of the azaleas.

10) The final cover, put together by the Oni Press design team! They did such a good job on the logo that I don't even know what to say, I'm so grateful!?

11-14) Some closeups + tool information + the reference photos I used for the azaleas!

I don't really have any big notes to add about the composition this time, since I feel like it's pretty straightforward! Wisteria sits in the middle as the focus of the piece, and the hands help frame her so she doesn't get lost in the flowers, but there isn't much going on beyond that.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone who's picked up the book or is planning to - it means the world!!! Order links can be found here, or you can request it at your local library!