Develop exciting book cover art

Reveals how a simple 3D model provides the basis for his female character, taken from the pages of a book

Bruno Wagner uses a 3D model for his character.

his illustration was commissioned for a book cover. The brief was specific, and went into a lot of detail about the character of the girl. To create it, I worked directly with the author of the book, and it was interesting to compare our thoughts on what we imagined the character would look like.

The girl is a rebel and heroic princess escaping on a powerful and muscular horse. The author was keen for the reader

Tto feel the strength of character and freedom of the heroine, as well as the impressive and somewhat frighteninglooking mount.

I found that the difficulty with this commission was achieving the right visual tone. Because the book’s readership is a young, female audience, the author wanted the cover to be engaging for that age group without it becoming too kitsch and a caricature of the heroine. She was also keen to avoid an overly masculine illustration, one that’s often seen in the Fantasy genre with the likes of Conan the Barbarian, for example.

So I had to find the right atmosphere and combine soft and feminine tones with a dynamic, elegant composition, while keeping some of my personal darker style, because the author also loved that. Thankfully, everything came together in the end and the author let me know she was very happy with the artwork. Job done!