Reimagining El i Monpress

Lauren Panepinto, Orbit’s creative director, on the thinking behind creating new art for Rachel Aaron’s The Legend of Eli Monpress Orbit commissioned Sam Weber to illustrate the cover of The Legend of Eli Monpress. “Sam does great character portraits,” says Lauren Panepinto. “We wanted him to capture the main character, who’s very funny, arch and roguish. A lot of our illustrators are good at character design, but Sam is also very good at conveying emotion.” Rachel has since written a fourth book.

Orbit’s brief asked for some humour, romance and epicness – but not too much of each. Character sketch Perfect pose “Sam came back with those initial thumbnails within a week. We thought it was dynamic to have the protagonist in this...