Gorgeous, huh? I’d seen the artwork a few weeks ago, which is easily Todd Lockwood‘s best in the Shadowmarch ‘trilogy’, and couldn’t wait to see the final cover. This image was pulled from the Daw Fall 2010 catalog, and hopefully indicates that we’ll be getting a proper look at the cover soon.
Shadowheart will be released in November, 2010.
You know you’re big news when your publisher lets you name your novel Gauntlgrym. Reminds me of Paolini and Brisingr. That said, with Dungeons & Dragons, Forgotten Realms, ‘New York Times Best-Selling Author’, and R.A Salvatore on the cover, it probably doesn’t matter what the title is.
Gauntlgrym, the 7,345th volume of the Drizzt Do’Urden saga, hits shelves in October.
UPDATE: A new cover for Gauntlgrym has been released!
Orbit Books has a reputation for being openly candid about the design process behind their covers, often showing off handfuls of alternate covers and revisions. Now, they’ve taken it to the next step. Lauren Panepinto, the woman behind many of their covers, hit record as she spent over six hours designing the cover for Blameless, the third novel in Gail Carriger‘s Alexia Tarabotti series, then, through the wonders of computer magic and movie trickery, condensed it down into an easily digestible minute and 53 seconds. If you’ve ever been curious about how covers are made, the video is absolutely worth a viewing.
Panepinto on the cover and the video:
Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc. And since this is a series look that has already been established for Soulless and Changeless, there weren’t the usual batches and rounds of versions of different designs that happen with standalone or first-in-a-new-series covers. That would be a weeklong video!
And, finally, the finished cover:
Pretty cool, huh? Let’s hope Orbit keeps putting together such great features about their novels. I know I certainly enjoy the peek behind the curtain.
Source: Walker of Worlds
Source: Walker of Worlds
Source: Walker of Worlds
I’ve not read Hamilton’s work, so I can’t comment on the tone of the covers (which I’ve heard are a little off, at least in regards to the less militaristic nature of Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained), but I’ve always felt that Steve Stone’s art is better suited for Science Fiction than Fantasy, though browsing his portfolio shows some impressive work.
Well, this is certainly different! It’s fantastic to see Tor continuing to push these new covers in new directions. Though it’s not exactly practical, it suits the medium, and will be an interesting practice once we see more e-readers with full colour, dynamic screens.
Artist Greg Manchess on the cover:
I told Irene that I was offering to do a grander, wider scene so that the viewer could explore the battle. It would stretch far enough to break the borders of the square, but to compensate, I composed it so that we could pick a ‘sweet spot’ to place on the cover. I let that spot dictate the broader POV.
As I stretched the scene, stage left, I found myself able to include more of what was happening in the story. I wanted to give a sense of distance to the landscape, while bringing figures forward enough that they’re almost on top of you. But the closer the figure, the more they block. And explosions take up a lot of real estate in a painting.
I had to pick the moment carefully. Depict a moment too far in advance of the mayhem and it weakens the excitement. Too far after the initial firestorm and I’d be depicting heaps of charred meat. I chose the moment just before the detonations went rending through the ranks completely. The wave is just starting to sweep over the Aiel, but as timing isn’t quite so precise, I depicted the flames cresting quickly from right to left, allowing the viewer “time” to see what was about to come. Utter flaming chaos.
Manchess absolutely nails the Battle of Dumai’s Well, one of the most intense and immediately recognizable scenes in the entire Wheel of Time series. My favourite in the series so far is still The Fires of Heaven, but it’s nice to see Tor change pace and provide a frenetic action scene to accompany the mostly characters-based covers for the previous volumes.
