• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

  • Home
  • Works
    • The Reflected City
    • The Sunless World
    • Taurin’s Chosen
    • The Heartwood Chronicles
    • Stand-Alones
  • Newsletter
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Contact
pretty pictures

pretty pictures

cover artist: Ravven

Today I’m thrilled to have Ravven, the cover artist behind Rainbird and Mourning Cloak, on my blog, answering questions about her work and process. I first saw her art on DeviantArt, and fell in love with its gorgeous colors, details, and textures:

architeuthis_regina_ravvenSea_Fae_ravven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome, Ravven!

1. Can you tell us a little bit about your artistic journey? How did you get into book cover design?

I’ve always drawn and painted, but never expected to make a career out of it. In the spirit of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face I resisted art classes, as I wanted to be a writer and not the artist that everyone assumed I would be. As a consequence my drawing skills are quite subpar, which is a shame. Learn the basics of your craft, kids – then you can do the fun stuff!

In terms of technical knowledge, my years as a web designer helped me greatly. I also worked in the art department of a large Los Angeles portrait studio where I was allowed to shoot on weekends – since my work is mainly digital paint with a Wacom tablet on top of photos, being able to light and shoot my own stock was wonderful. Since we moved to England I’m lacking a studio to shoot in, but it’s on my list. Working in digital marketing and web design teaches simplicity of concept, and how to lead the eye for greatest impact. Since I came from a largely untrained traditional art background, that was invaluable to me as a designer.

2. What are some of the influences on your art?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. There are artists that I love, such as Dave McKean and John Jude Palencar, but they’re so far beyond my art that it’s like looking up at the stars. 🙂 I keep files of covers that I really like, which I have here. I like lush covers with good use of shadow and light, very dramatic.

Angel of Fire

3. People do judge a book by its cover. What are some common cover design mistakes you see?

I always pick books by their covers. There is a fantasy writer whom I absolutely love (no names) who recently came out with a new book that had a horrible, cheap-looking cover. I normally buy all of his books in hardcover and I just… can’t… buy this one.

My number one cover design mistakes would have to be not having a professional cover done. I know that sounds really self-serving, but it makes me cry when people are trying so hard to publicise their book and the cover is horrible – everything is stacked against them from the start. Other mistakes would be not having the text pop and be clear even at small sizes, and having a cliché cover. Styles in cover art go in and out, and if you’ve seen something too often (pretty girls in big dresses, drowning girls, Big Face covers) it becomes boring.

4. What’s the best part about your job? The worst?

The best part is the collaboration between myself as artist and the author in bringing their vision to life on a cover – it’s such an exciting experience and I feel as proud as a parent when I see my covers out in the world. I love it! Collaboration can actually be the best AND the worst, depending on how much freedom is involved. The best covers come from an open collaboration, trading ideas, throwing out what doesn’t work and having the freedom to experiment with wild-ass ideas. The flip side to that is when the author has an
extremely literal idea of what the cover needs to look like, especially when they wish to exactly re-create a scene from the book. Literal covers quite often end up being so constrained that the end result is lifeless and muddy. I think a cover image should reflect the theme of a book, and how it feels, while still being true to the characters and world.

Mortality

5. When I first worked with you on the cover for Rainbird, I had a hard time picking stock images because I didn’t know what’s easy to do and what’s not when it comes to photomanipulation. Can you talk about the limitations of photomanipulation?

There is an amazing amount that can actually be done with photomanipulation on covers as long as you can paint – that is the most important thing. On Rainbird, for example, the original model was wearing a short denim jacket and denim cutoffs. Pants were added, which thank goodness were mostly in shadow, and then two versions were created, one with bare arms and one with a duster. Both were painted (the duster used some of the detail from the original jacket). You can change or replace hair entirely, change the color of hair and eyes and skin, and add clothing – but generally it all has to be painted to blend it and fit cloth to bent arms, etc.

6. What’s the most challenging cover you’ve worked on?

One of the most challenging covers was a science fiction cover for Kala Wade Media – since I don’t do 3D work or paint things from scratch, coming up with the open space ship bay behind the characters was tough. Another challenging cover was one of the Westerns I worked on, simply because it was impossible to find the right stock. Just try doing a search for “handsome cowboy” or “young ranch hand” or whatever and see what you get…lots and lots of musclebound guys wearing cowboy hats and not much else. 🙂

Born in Flames

7. What are three of your favorite covers (not your own)? What makes them stand out?

Seed by Rob Ziegler, for it’s use of stunning image-as-typography. I can’t do this kind of work, but I admire those who can.

Wither by Lauren DeStefano – a “pretty girl in a dress” cover that transcends all the others. One of my all-time favourites.

The Drowning City by Amanda Downum. Deep shadows, bright highlights, extreme drama in the way that the character is almost silhouetted. Lovely.

8. Is there a genre or sub-genre that you haven’t done a cover in and wish that you could?

I’d like to do more horror and suspense. I love those scary, even gory, covers and haven’t had the chance to do many of these.

Reaper's Novice

Thanks for stopping by, Ravven!

Check out Ravven’s website, or her Pinterest board for more of her lovely covers.

mourning cloak: cover reveal and giveaway

Ta-da!

Mourning Cloak

(Isn’t she stunning?)

Kato Vorsok is a man deserted by his god. A failed hero living in exile, he wants nothing to do with his old life.

Until the night he encounters a wounded mourning cloak—a demon that can walk through walls, dissolve into mist, and spear a man’s heart with a fingernail.

She calls him by name. She knows his past. She needs his help.

 And she is his key to redemption.

Mourning Cloak is a science fantasy novella.

Expected Publication: January 21st, 2013
Formats: ebook

Mourning Cloak on Goodreads

***

And, wait, there’s more! You can enter to win a grand prize of ALL 5 of my e-books, or one of 10 eARCS of Mourning Cloak.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***

Many thanks go out to Ravven, who created this awesome cover, to Kellie Sheridan for setting up the cover reveal on multiple blogs and organizing the giveaway, to my husband David for doing the e-book formatting, and to Jo Anderton and Robin Cornett for beta-reading.

under a blanket, thinking

1. This last week, I was over at A Digital Magician, blogging about what I learned about writing from video games.

2. On the writing front…*hollow laugh*

I’ve decided to step back from NaNo-lite, because I wasn’t getting anything else done. Not blogging. Not revising. Not getting to a dozen little business-y things that need my attention.

I’m still not getting any of those done, except for the revising. Which is fine, because I need Mourning Cloak to be in good shape by the end of this month. I’ll go back to Rafe after that’s done. In the meantime, he can enjoy a little rest because there’s a world of hurt coming his way (she laughs evilly).

Part of my lack of wordage is just… I’m scraping bottom. I’m out of blog ideas. I’m stretched thin among all these different writing projects. Plus, I’ve been thinking about a lot of different things recently and reading a lot and I just need time to process it all, before it comes out in blog posts and stories.

I feel struck dumb. I have nothing to say right now–at least not anything coherent that can be shared with others.

I know. And I’m writer. *spreads hands, shakes head*

3. Speaking of malevolent space dragons, here’s the trailer for Final Fantasy XIV (via Ravven). It’s an MMO so I won’t be playing it (er, watching David play it), but… dragons!

 

4. And speaking of Ravven, I don’t know if I ever linked to the post she did on the evolution of Rainbird‘s cover. It’s long, but it shows you just how much back and forth there was between us.

book cover art: strong females, no weapons

Several weeks ago, when I posted book covers that featured strong female characters, Kelly at Stacked Books asked a good question: Does a woman need to have a weapon in her hand in order to be considered strong?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: When I put together my earlier post, I focused on the genre I am most well-read in–fantasy–which has a disproportionately higher number of warrior women than (say) your cozy mysteries. Also, I wanted to post alternatives to covers of warrior babes where the emphasis is on the babe, not the warrior. The sword/gun/dagger in those women’s hands is not to display their strength, but their sexiness. Add skimpy clothing, come-hither looks, and poses that show off womanly assets, and the weapons become nothing more than accessories.

But, Kelly has a good point. Strength is not all about fighting prowess. So I went looking for covers that showed strong women without a weapon in their hands.

 

Joy. Optimism. Zest for life, hope for the future. That’s what I think of when I see this woman. She looks to have a strong spirit and a happy disposition.

Woman. No weapon. Pretty dress/robe. But she doesn’t look like someone who puts up with nonsense. The tilt of her head, the direction of her gaze, the hands on hips pose…yep, not a weakling this one. Sorry I couldn’t find a larger image.

 

 I like to see women in action, rather than just standing around looking pretty. So this spelunking-with-robotic-snakes(?!) scene works for me. Also, the woman on the cover is refreshingly different from the pretty waifs or sultry temptresses. She looks older and tougher.

I debated about this one, because the girl looks scary. But she also looks strong (and scary, don’t forget that) while wearing a typical YA fantasy white dress, so she gets points for overcoming the languishing waif girl stereotype. Plus, I love the red hair blending into the fire.

Another YA princess in a gorgeous dress, but she looks like she’s up for some fun. Or mischief. Or both. I like that stance, that sideways look out of the corner of her eyes.

This is not a comprehensive list, of course, but it’ll do for a start. I was very tempted to include this lovely cover for The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan, but I think the glowing ring in Moiraine’s hand probably counts as a (magical) weapon.

Any other covers you can think of that fit the strong woman, no weapons criteria?

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 11
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Join the Mailing List

I send out monthly newsletters, and share some special content with subscribers only. Join me!

(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Search

Latest Release

Mist and Memory

A sinister and shadowy organization. The young mages who oppose it. The hunt for ancient relics has begun. Cloud Village Arc: Lisette never thought she would return to the mountains she fled as a child. But when Tamsin, a Heartwood alumna, invites Amber, Naia, and her on a job in the area, Lisette figures it’s [read more] about Mist and Memory

Recent Posts

Afterthoughts: Mist and Memory

March 1, 2023 Leave a Comment

Afterthoughts: Witchblaze

January 31, 2021 8 Comments

A YA anime-inspired web serial

April 30, 2019 Leave a Comment

The Darkest Days Fantasy Bundle

July 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

Categories

© 2023 Rabia Gale | All Rights Reserved | Design by Robin Cornett | Header Artwork by David Revoy: Used with permission | Privacy Policy