Untitled (Patreon)

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who joined me last for my Ustream art session, and stayed through to the very end. If you did tune in yesterday you got a chance to see this piece unveiled to the public for the first time. This is the finished wraparound cover for the upcoming RPG Roan which is being developed by Robert.

Now due to the somewhat frantic nature of setting up a new video studio in about 45 minutes. Tip of the hat to Caerdwyn for pulling that magic rabbit out of a hat! I kind of forgot some of the little details I wanted to discuss in this image.

First off, if any of my viewers are familiar with carrier deck operations this image might seem a bit scarce of deck crew. Most images I have located related to that topic usually show dozens if not hundreds of individuals moving in a complicated, and potential deadly ballet, that is carrier deck operation. However when I was composing this image I had to keep several factors in mind.

First I had to make certain there was a space for the game logo on the front cover. Roan BW mockup 01 Second I had to account for the spine of the book which is not a good place for characters and will often have type or graphics on it. The back cover presents its own challenges since this space is usually designated for important piece of retail information like UPC bar codes and ISBN numbers. Also it is the place where description text is placed concerning the book.

What this means is that the back still has to be interesting but will often have a lot of additional graphic elements that clash with your image. Therefore I kept the back cover relatively free of ponies so client could use of that space to its full potential.

However as an illustrator you are presented with a challenge when designing a wraparound cover since effectively you are composing two separate images that have integrate into one unified image but are capable of standing alone as individual elements. Therefore it is ideal that the back cover be as interesting as the front without taking away from the front covers punch!

When I first began attending art school I had an instructor who told us that as illustrators our job was to buy our client ten seconds of time. That represented the time period when in a store a customer might be scanning the shelves and have their eyes fall on the book/ product. It was our job as illustrators to make the customer want to pick up the book, album, magazine, game box, or bottle amongst all the other items present. Then the customer would the object and examine in more detail. If we succeeded in buying our client that ten seconds then we had fulfilled our professional duties as illustrators.