Book Cover Illustration
Client: Weiser Books, 2025
The Brief
I’m the author and illustrator of this volume. It’s my first book and I was excited to do my own cover, which most authors will agree is a rarity. The Art Director decided a direction leaning towards a cyberpunk graphic novel feel would be appropriate for the cover. Initially, I wasn’t sure, but considering how many covers for AI books are either robots with laptops, mechanical hands, or computer landscapes, this felt like a fresher direction.
Midway through the rough phase, the AD casually mentioned that best-selling British author and physicist, Peter J. Carroll had supplied a lengthy and kind foreword, so I felt an added pressure to knock this out of the park.
The Solution
Backgrounds of circuit boards are kind of played out, but I thought, maybe I could hint at one without being so in-your-face with it. I went with colors no one would use for a circuit board (a pale Canary yellow and warm grey) and I used the Erase tool to delete random bits of the board, giving it an organic feel. Another solution I employed was using brushes with uneven widths that would randomly change widths by up to 12% and all straight lines were eyeballed instead of being perfect. The tentacle-like mass of network cables surrounding the character add a lot of motion and energy to the image. Finally, keeping the character’s gender and race ambiguous made the image relevant to a larger audience.
