Cover Art

by veilwar

I suppose its not too early to start thinking about the cover art for an eventual Veil War book. The picture at the top of the page here is something I found on the internet, by Gustave Dore from his series on the Crusades. The significance of that will become clearer somewhere around Part VIII. And it will be downright obvious for the rest of the book. (Dore has done a lot of cool stuff. Check out especially his illustrations of the Crusades linked above, but also his Paradise Lost, Orlando Furioso and Dante.)

Here’s The Battle of Nicaea from the Crusades:

I have a friend back in Ohio – a talented artist and sometimes telemarketer – who has done work in that sort of intricate style. I thought that if I could get something done after the style of Dore, but including an Evans with his Barrett, or a Captain Lewis in utilities with his new sword- – well, that would be just keen. An antique style cover – lithograph with Marines – would buck the trend of the usual fantasy cover style that trends toward the florid oil painting with bikini armor-clad chicks and the like. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But sadly, I rarely get back to Ohio and my friend doesn’t believe in the internet.

But I ran across, in the typically utterly random manner of the internet, this:

I like the style of this, more restrained and kind of the dark feel you get from the Dutch painters of the old school. From the artist’s web page, it seems that this is a photoshop of different elements, but a really well done one. (You can see other stuff here.) It doesn’t seem that the artist has any huge commissions – perhaps she’d be willing to do a cover on spec for the Veil War?

Does anyone know of any good artists willing to work for cheap?