ID: the cover of Sylvestus Vol II: The Rise, by Tatiana AS Webb. The
bottom of the image reads "This book is nothing short of remarkable". The background is parchment, slightly darker and more brown than the previous image, with three slightly brighter blood splatters and some faded handwritten text. The cover features a sketch of a moth. End ID
The "parchment" for Vol I was, as you probably guessed, tea-stained sketchbook paper. It was done in the washing up bowl of my first year uni accommodation (then dried on a flatmate's cupcake rack), using redbush tea, hence the distinctive pinky-orange colour - much more pinky-orange than I ever wanted or intended, though I have since grown attached to it. The "blood" splatters were done using the same pot of black Indian ink as the Dying Ember cover, coloured red in post, and the text and skull were both done by hand on separate pages then scanned in and put together - I did about five drafts of the skull and was very happy with this one. The title was done with a calligraphy pen and took probably more tries than any other part; in the end, each letter is taken individually from a different attempt, because I just could not get the handwriting right on every letter in one go. I still don't like the t, but I'm a big fan of that dare-I-say iconic first S.
Similarly, the "parchment" of Vol II is a tea-stain, though this time with Yorkshire Tea. I ended up colourising the entire thing to be much more orange than it came out, because it came out a, you know, Yorkshire Tea dark brown - which is probably more realistic to parchment than the final product, but I wanted to come closer to the Vol I pinky-orange, without actually matching it. I like the fact that the final product is a similar, but darker, shade, maybe matching the tone of the books or some sh*t.
Oh, yes, and rather than being done in a washing up bowl, this was done...
ID: a photo of a lasagne tray filled with tea. Important documents in the background are pixellated out. Probably should've moved those before I took the picture, eh? End ID
... in a lasagne tray.
I have had this lasagne tray for three years. I have twice made lasagne in it, three times garlic bread, and once brownies. In the past eighteen months, it has been used exclusively for craft projects or holding smaller kitchen objects. One day, I will be able to have nine friends over for lasagne again. One day.
It was then dried on, uhh, my oven rack.
ID: a piece of paper, recently tea-stained and still wet, drying on an oven rack which has been placed on a piece of kitchen roll next to a microwave. End ID
This had an unintended side effect: a couple of grease stains. One is obscured by the moth, but another can be seen on the back of Vol II, next to the word "fiery" in the blurb. I kept it because it looks like a burn mark, very much suiting the theme of Vol II, but do not be fooled my friends: it is a grease stain from my filthy, filthy oven tray. Yes, keep reading and let me ruin the magic further.
Search high and low though I did, I was sadly unable to locate the beloved Indian ink that has been my artistic companion for many years. I could have re-used those assets at least, but I've used the three "blood splatters" from Vol I in so many promotional materials over the years that I really just wanted something fresh. So I settled on red watercolours (would have used black again for better depth but my watercolour set doesn't actually come with a black) and had an absolute f*cking nightmare with it. Just use ink in future, lads. Much easier. You see, ink has the perfect viscosity for splatter: undiluted, it can be held on a brush or between pinched fingers from a height of "about as high as I can reach above the page while seated at my desk", and with a slight flick, go splattering down beautifully. For extra fun, you can flick the end of the paintbrush and get non-washable black ink over all of your clothes and kitchen counters. For more splatter, lift higher; for more consistency, lift lower.
Not so, watercolours. In order to get both the depth of colour that I needed (though I did end up re-colouring manually in post) and the splatter effect that I wanted, I ended up with the page on the floor of the kitchen, stood on a chair, reaching down to the table to dab my finger in water, then standing up and rubbing it directly into the red pigment in my other hand, then reaching as high as I could and shaking my finger roughly over the page. I think I got much better ones on the floor than I did on the page, but eventually it was enough:
ID: a sketchbook lying open on a tiled floor. At the top of the page is a collection of handwritten paragraphs, two of which appear on the cover of Sylvestus Vol II: The Rise. At the bottom of the page is a variety of pink-red splatters of diluted watercolour paint. There is also one splatter on the floor below the page. End ID
You can also see here the handwritten text, which was done with the same pens as previously. It had been easily four years since I had needed to do this handwriting (my Sylv handwriting), so it took a bit to get back into, but thankfully it was pretty easy to pick up again. Sylv's handwriting is one thing I have a very clear image of. The title asset, however, was just re-used 'cos it's a logo now basically, innit.
The text on the cover of Vol I is mostly related to the contents of the book but not actually taken from it, as it is supposed to represent what Sylv writes in his notes about the people of Anteria and the events of the story. One is what he thinks of Curtia Dorsuo but never expresses in the novel, one is a small note about Pulex, one is an Anterian legend he might have been told by Lavi, another is a list of expenses involved in running an estate.
The text on the cover of Vol II is similar; mostly letters written in the book, one section from Pliny the Elder's The Natural History (obvi), a few subtextual trains of thought from Sylv. For both books, I wrote about three full A4 pages, knowing that less than one page's worth would end up on the final product.
Of course, the last thing left is the moth. The star of the show!
That b*stard nearly killed me.
I drew five tiger skulls for the cover of Vol I, and I thought that was a lot of times to draw a thing. But I enjoyed it so much that I ended up just drawing animal skulls for fun for a while, and eventually getting one tattooed on me (not the sylv skull, i'm not that much of a vain ass nerd, just another... unrelated... big cat skull).
I drew twelve moths for the cover of Vol II, and lads? I hated every single one.
ID: a sketchbook lying open on a desk, showing two hand-drawn moths in the same style as the cover of both Sylvestus Vol I and Vol II. One is shown from the side with its wings folded, the other is shown from above with its wings open. More documents are pixellated out behind the sketchbook, though these are just D&D notes, not private documents. Not that you can tell, as they are pixellated out. End ID
I'm pretty happy with the outcome, though, when I eventually settled on one! I like moths a lot as animals, just not, it turns out, as the subject of my own artistic endeavours. I think my problem was the stripes. It couldn't be done in exactly the same style as the skull like I'd hoped. In fact, could have probably saved time and effort here and on the text by doing them using my Wacom tablet (which I didn't have when creating the Dying Ember or Vol I covers) straight onto my laptop, but I wanted the consistency that came from methodology. I draw differently on my tablet.
Nahvo'que as a moth is consistently described as "dark" and "furred". Antennae are also mentioned. I imagine the moth as being nearly the size of Sylv's head - I have seen moths that big in Borneo and Kenya, and I love them. I just wouldn't want one crawling out of my mouth, which uh... spoiler alert. Unfortunately, it is very hard to render something "dark" and "furred" (and, as i imagined of nahvo'que, stripey) in the same style as a smooth pale tiger skull. Further, the position and shape of the skull on the Vol I cover had set a precedent. So, it took a while to find a shape that fit. I was really fixated on a sideways-facing horizontal moth like the first one in the photo above, but it was just too shallow for the cover; there would have been too much space between it and the title, or else it would have had to be so long it would have wrapped all around the spine and back cover too. I eventually settled on the moth I did because the lines mimic so well the shape of the tiger skull, as well as it having patches of dark focused lines and patches of empty negative space, much as the skull does.
The final step, of course, is putting it all together. I use GIMP, even though all my artist friends both hate it and mock me for it. I just like GIMP. It used to be very good, and now it's less good, but until someone pries it out of my f*cking hands I'm not going to stop using it because I've gotten very good at it. The intricacies is really just a lot of layers, colourise tools, levels, temperature adjustments, alpha to selection-ing, and ever so much cut and pasting. The cover is designed as a wraparound, all of it on the template Lulu provided me with.
ID: a screenshot of the cover of Vol II open in GIMP, the image manipulation programme. The left of the screen is a tool set, the right is a brush set and a list of layers. The cover of the book appears as it does in reality, except that it is overlaid with a 10% opacity template from Lulu.com which shows what will be the back cover, front cover, and spine, and bleed margins. The document is titled "Vol II cover mk3.xcf" and has 17 layers. End ID
What happens when I'm done creating the cover? Now that's a magic that isn't mine to spoil. Now go forth, friends, with newfound knowledge and probably less respect for me than you had previously! Admire that grease stain that looks helpfully like a burn mark on the back of your copy of Vol II that you won't be getting until it comes out in like a month, and rejoice!
