Back Cover Art – Starveyors

October 9, 2012October 9, 2012 KenMcConnellLeave a comment

Here are some back cover thumbnails I did for the Starveyors paperback. The first one shows the Silicant, Eighty-eight engaging the Votainion fleet at Selene. I like this, but it might be harder to pull off.

Source: via Ken on Pinterest

A slightly more refined version of the second thumbnail which shows the Alliance Fleet at Voton and perhaps some of the opposing Votainion Fleet. I like this one because it should be easier to pull off. Lots of repeating ship images perhaps flipping the images left and right of center.

My cover artist, Byron, is working on using some pictures of the S. S. Sokol model seen in my blog header for the back cover of Starforgers. These images will go in the star field band that extends around the spine and onto the back cover. That’s why they are rectangular shaped.

The front covers of these books have already been created with the coins. For the paperback versions, these images will be tweaked with an eye on making them more realistic looking and less like computer graphics. I’m not a big fan of CG on book covers, I’d much rather have some original art, but unfortunately there is no room in the budget for the kind of epic paintings I’d like to commission.

Ocherva Cover Gets Closer to Fine

June 5, 2010 KenMcConnellLeave a comment

The cover for my anthology is up for another iteration. Thanks to all those who left comments and suggestions on the last version. This one has been created with your comments in mind. It also now has the traditional book size.

As with the other version, if anything jumps out at you as being just not right, please let us know. We are looking to finalize it this weekend. I will be loading it up for sale on the Kindle next week.

Fun Fact #1 about this cover – the background is an actual photo of the surface of Mars.

Fun Fact #2 – the pistol is a computer model of the Deep Sleep blaster used by the Sandmen in the Logan’s Run movie.

Starstrikers Final Front Cover

March 8, 2010 KenMcConnellLeave a comment

It is my great pleasure to present to you the final front cover of Starstrikers. Byron has completely reworked all the elements of the original design and come up with one of the most iconic images ever for a SF book. (Click on the image to enlarge) I won’t go into all the things he changed and why, he’s going to be doing a post about that on his blog. But I will say that I’m very pleased with the results and I hope it inspires people to purchase the novel in both paperback and e-book formats.

I’ll begin uploading this cover image and the Second Edition text this week to all the regular outlets; Smashwords, Scribd and Amazon Kindle. The e-book will still be just $.99 cents. The paperback version is still being typeset and should be out by May of 2o10. I’ll have more news on that as we get closer to release date.

More details about why this cover is the way it is in a future post. Until then, enjoy the new cover!

More Tyrmia Cover Sketches

January 3, 2010 KenMcConnellLeave a comment

Here are a few more sketches from last week’s meeting with my graphic designer brother on the cover for Tyrmia. These were sketched by me with more regard to concept than looks. I was attempting to show what the cover would look like with more of a focus on the jungle and less on Szeredy and her ship. The intent was to place emphasis on her isolation in the wild. We still have not finalized the cover art yet.

It’s not very dramatic, but it shows the clearing in the canopy that the plane made while crashing. Imagine this drenched in sun rays and greens.

This is the unit patch or coin design for the Starveyers. It had to be realized in case we decide to put in on a patch on Szeredy’s arm for the cover of Tyrmia. You will see it again on the cover of the Starveyers novel in a few years time. It has an “A” for the Grand Alliance and a “V” representing the former Votainion Empire.

Playing with the cover text placement. Nothing too different there.

Possible Tyrmia Cover Ideas

December 30, 2009 KenMcConnellLeave a comment

My brother and I brainstormed about the Tyrmia cover art yesterday and came up with some interesting ideas. Below is a sketch he did that combines several ideas. I won’t discuss much about it other than to say that this is a very, very early look at one possible idea that we had.

We also played around with having the back cover show a scene from the book that was entirely different from the front cover. Again, very preliminary and not in the least bit final.