book cover

Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy

Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of working with Robbin Schiff at Random House on the book cover illustration for “Brief Encounters with the Enemy" by Said Sayrafiezadeh. The characters in the stories had a quietly haunting quality as they moved through their seemingly mundane city; exploring those elements in the sketches below was a lot of fun.
Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy Random House: Brief Encounters with the Enemy

A Just Defiance

"A Just Defiance" wraparound cover illustration
I had the chance to illustrate the cover for Peter Harris' novel "A Just Defiance" for Portobello Books in the UK. The book chronicles the trial of four young ANC soldiers being charged with a string of political murders in Pretoria, South Africa in 1987 and, told through the eyes of their attorney, is interlaced with flashbacks of the violence and circumstances leading to the events. Above is the wraparound cover illustration and below is the final cover design by the always great Michael Salu.
"A Just Defiance" wraparound cover design

William Burroughs

Burroughs_CoverPhoto
The William Burroughs paperbacks that I illustrated earlier this year along with Naked Lunch just arrived from the printers. Because the art director liked the style of the Silky Shark print in my portfolio for the initial Naked Lunch assignment, I continued the process using a silk screen-style approach and a limited palette throughout the sketches and finals. The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and The Place of Dead Roads all followed the same process as Naked Lunch, including two or three layers of drawn tones, which I attempted to keep in tune with the style of each book and as a set. The final layouts and text were done by Jo Walker at Harper Collins and I think they did a nice job of pulling the artwork together. (Below is a bit of a process breakdown of the finished covers.)

Burroughs_CoverSketches
Initial sketches for The Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded, and The Place of Dead Roads (columns L to R respectively.)

Burroughs_CoverSketchRevisions
The selected sketches with some adjustments in the saturation and color to help balance out the group as a set.

SoftMachine_Inks1
Ink and brush on Bristol Board drawing for the Soft Machine shadows layer.

SoftMachine_Inks2
Ink drawing for the Soft Machine mid-tones layer.

SoftMachine_artwork
Finished colors on the background layer with some separations for black.

Finished cover illustrations and designs:
SoftMachine_jacket

TicketThatExploded_jacket

PlaceOfDeadRoads_jacket

NakedLunch_jacket

La Digitale

LaDigitale
LaDigitale_roughs

Here is my cover artwork for the upcoming French sci-fi novel La Digitale by Alfred Boudry. The story tells of a sudden death involving a mysterious perfume, so the book's editor Eric Holstein and I were inspired to play with the style of contemporary perfume ads, while still retaining the ominous undertones of the detective story. The book will be available later this month from ActuSF. Also owenfreeman.com has been updated with new work and sketches.