Cover Art: Trickster Noir

I have known pretty much from the beginning that the cover artwork I created for Trickster Noir wasn't the final edition. I did the eyes because I needed to have a cover for the Dean Wesley Smith cover design workshop I was going through, and my first option, an image of Bella, was beyond my drawing-in-a-hurry skills. So this weekend I began the whole process again.

I was originally thinking a woman in a dress, a fairy, with a raven, or maybe ravens… but my First Reader suggested that Bella is not overly fond of Court fashion, and perhaps it was time to let her show her true self. Some time later, I had located a woman in jeans and a plaid shirt (with, bonus, a gun) on Dreamstime and bought the stock photo.

Fantasy covers do not work with a photo on them, and besides, all the other elements like Lom in the fog, and Raven, were painterly. So off the image went to Gimp, to be altered. I wasn't entirely successful, as I managed to mash the woman's face in attempting to soften and make it more youthful, and to change the hair color (Bella is not a peroxide blonde). A friend offered to help, and played around with it, so the Bella you see on the final cover is her doing, although I think I know how to do it when I need to make another image work.

So! Let me know what you think of the attempts. I dont' know if it's boring to you all, but it ate enough of my time I am rather proud of the final effort.

The final art for Trickster Noir (maybe, unless I decide to change it again!), note the spaces left for Title and Author Name

One of the early attempts, with the bad Bella image. It's very noir, but not branded to match Pixie Noir