Peachtree Publisher's Blogspot: The Development of a Book Cover

My dear friend and colleague, Shan Correa, just came out with her middle-grade novel, Gaff, and I am so proud of her!

As an author and illustrator, I am well aware of the challenges faced in developing a book cover, and have sometimes wished I could "do-over" a cover.

Peachtree's Blog, Judging a Book by its Cover, features Shan's novel as a demonstration of how a cover was selected:

"When creating anything, especially book covers, changes are going to happen and first ideas will become third ideas or even sixth ideas.  But, with every change or every new idea comes a more polished and a more cohesive cover, so that the end result is something that we are all proud of and something that highlights the story."

Congratulations, Shan!

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creating a digital albatross for my latest children's book, feather by feather

The Laysan Albatross (Moli, or Phoebastria immutabilis), with an 80 inch wingspan, breed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.




1. Creating feathers using a general leaf template.




2. Next, grouping feathers together.



3. Now it's time to create a framework on which to paste my feathers.










4. Finally, colorizing the feather patterns completes the albatross.





5. Now that I've established the distinctive markings of the albatross, it's time to stylize the bird so that it's more appealing to children. I've enlarged the eyes and the beak, and have added a lei:



©2009 Tammy Yee
All rights reserved.

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