Covers, Covers, and More Covers!

by Roseanna White | Jan 12, 2017 | Cover Designs

I’m up to my eyeballs in galleys for A Name Unknown right now, so I can’t spend much time on the ol’ blog this week. But I did want to check in real quick. So I thought I’d do a quick share of the covers I created last week.

WhiteFire just acquired some of Melody Carlson’s backlist contemporary titles–all previously published, but we’re giving them a fresh new look. I’ve had fun repackaging these MC classics, and since the first batch of them are processing and will be available today/tomorrow (I’ll update with links later), I figured it would be cool to share!

I tackled them in an, ahem, amazingly brilliant order. Alphabetical. 😉 So here they are in that same order.

First up is actually the most recent of the books, Armando’s Treasure

Dora Chase is an eighty-year-old widow whose
family finds her frustratingly independent. Her son no longer trusts her
judgment and constantly pressures her to sell her rural home and rundown farm
to a huge computer firm.

When a young stranger shows up, Dora is
suspicious, but before long Armando Garcia wins her trust. And Armando supports
Dora’s independence, causing the conflict within her bickering family to
escalate. Dora’s son abhors Armando’s interference and is determined to send
him away. He suspects the charming young man is running from something or
someone. And he’s not far from wrong.

The unlikely friendship that grows between the
elderly widow and the young man with a past leads them both on a journey toward
hope, healing and forgiveness.

For a young widow, the stone mansion she once
dreamed of owning, offers the promise of a new beginning.

After the death of her husband, Kestra returns
to her hometown of Port Star. With the purchase of her childhood dream house—a
stone mansion along the rocky Oregon coast—it appears she has found a way to
rebuild her life.

Kestra begins to transform the old house into an
elegant, yet charming restaurant. But as the renovations begin, a mysterious stranger
moves into her caretaker’s cottage—and eventually into her heart.

Suddenly life is full of promise and new opportunities,
until a contractor’s jealousy threatens Kestra’s new romance.

Jayne
Morgan has a lot to learn about love. Harris McAllister has a lot to learn
about tolerance. When they meet they have lots to teach each other.

Jayne
feels betrayed when her fiancé suddenly
dumps her for his high school sweetheart just weeks before the wedding. She’d
love to leave Paradise, Oregon, but she’s signed a teaching contract and the
kids in her classroom need her.

Cassanda Maxwell has had a life filled with
pain. Her mother died too young, her father is an abusive alcoholic, and she’s
a misfit everywhere she goes.

After being shuttled between various foster
homes, Cass struggles to find her identity and finds herself caught up with
Scott Jones (aka “Sky”) and his group of friends who start a Jesus commune in
California. But before long, the group is more interested in pot and sex than
they are spiritual growth.

Once again, Cass finds herself trapped in
unhappiness—and she longs for escape.

Will Cass find the life and love she craves on a
California commune—with the charismatic Sky and his followers? Or
can she fulfill her dreams—and find her real future—with her childhood
friend Joey?

First there are shades of sorrow, then shades of
hope. Will Gwen find shades of light?

When her only child leaves home for college,
widowed Gwen Sullivan discovers just how lonely an “empty nest” can be. How
will she adjust and fill her empty days? 

At the urging of friends, Gwen takes a job with
an interior designer—whom she soon discovers to be domineering and jealous of
Gwen’s creativity. Suddenly she’s stuck doing menial tasks. When a sleazy client
starts to harass her, Gwen begins to wonder if she’s cut out for the working
world. 

She eventually meets Oliver Black, who gives her
an opportunity to use her decorating skills, and suddenly Gwen sees herself in
a more confident light. But Oliver is a man of many secrets, and Gwen wonders
if she can trust her heart to him.

Emma has always been “the practical one” in the
family. But that is about to change as she embarks on the adventure of her
life.

Emma Davis wants a new life now that she no
longer needs to care for her grandmother. A spur-of-the-moment visit to a
travel agency sets her on a journey far from her Iowa home.

Emma takes a cruise to the far islands of the
Pacific, but it isn’t until she arrives in Papua, New Guinea, that she begins
to realize her true calling. Emma regains her sense of purpose by caring for
three motherless children and befriending their father, Josh Daniels.

Josh’s troubled pass and
the loss of his wife have left him vulnerable, but can the love Emma has
discovered in her own heart, awaken his heart to all Emma has to offer?

 So there we have it! I still have four more covers to design for a series from Melody that we’ll be re-releasing, but that will have to wait until after galleys. Speaking of which . . . BYE!

Book Cover Design – Forgiven by Carol Ashby

by Roseanna White | Nov 16, 2016 | Cover Designs

It’s been a while since I’ve gone behind the design, and this week one of my designs just released, so it seems like a great time to feature it. =)

Forgiven is author Carol Ashby’s debut novel–an impeccably researched tale of love in first century Judea. Obviously I was excited to work with Carol, this being one of my favorite genres and settings. And as I worked with her, I quickly discovered that Carol knows her history very well. If you check out her website, you’ll find a TON of extras on the history.

For the cover of this first book in her Light in the Empire Series, she wanted something that showed her Messianic Jewish heroine, her Roman centurion hero, and the distance/tension between the two.

Now, there aren’t a ton of stock photos out there with women in biblical era dress. Trust me. I’ve searched and searched for it. And I wanted to give Carol something very unique for her cover. So rather than go with one of the photos of a woman in a head scarf that I’m seeing on covers everywhere, I actually started here.

Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this photo. Her jewelry. Her makeup. The fact that the sash crosses over her chest. The shoes. The dress has no sleeves. And she’s not wearing a head covering at all.

But thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I could turn her into this:

How? Honestly, it took a lot of work. I started by cleaning the makeup off her face and duplicating some of the folds of the dress to create a v-neck. In this version, I’d also used the fabulous clone-stamp and smudge tools to eliminate the jewelry.

Changing the sash to red, per the author’s instructions, was actually quite easy–red is one of those colors that you can add with a few clicks in Photoshop, but which it’s a pain to try to get rid of.

Of course, our Rachel here needed sleeves too. So I added those by copying and reshaping parts of the dress, and then changing their transparency.

And then the veil. For this, I actually borrowed a veil from a lovely Indian model…

Did a bit of adjusting, of course, and got this:

The only thing left to change was her shoe. It was a pretty simple matter of switching out the original toe —

with one in a sandal.

At this point I was happy with Rachel, and it was time to turn to the hero, Lucius.

Oh. My. Gracious. He was complicated. Why? Because no stock photos have centurion garb right, and the author is a stickler for authenticity (understandably!), so I had to do a LOT of manipulation and combining of photos.

So I started with this guy…

Used the leather bottom part of this guy…

The face of this guy…

And then had to give him a scar from this lovely fellow.

The author actually has a collection of swords and daggers (or her son does, anyway), so she provided the photo of the appropriate weaponry to have at his side.

Putting him all together (and off-setting for correct positioning on the cover), we get this.

Now we had our characters, so it was time to turn to the background. I wanted to keep part of the stone archway Rachel is leaning on–I loved how it framed the cover, and it gave a nice old-world vibe. But to have stone completely behind her as in the original photo was too dark and boring. So I took out that back wall and replaced it with a view of the Galilean countryside.

So here’s our complete picture, minus the words.

For the title, I combined two fonts (Cinzel Decorative and Maphylla) and used a cool design to set it off.

I echoed the design behind the series title up top, added the author name in one of my go-to, favorite fonts (Linux Libertine) and voila!

When it came time to do the full cover, I went RED. It echoed both his cape and her sash, which I loved. I did a fairly simple combination of red with that archway, and framed the text within it.

So here’s the official blurb!

Are  some  wounds
too  deep  to  forgive?

With a ruthless father who murdered for the family inheritance, Marcus Drusus plans to do the same. In AD 122, Marcus follows his brother Lucius to Judaea and plots to frame a zealot for his older brother’s death. But the plan goes awry, and Lucius is rescued by a Messianic Jewish woman. Her oldest brother is a zealot and a Roman soldier killed her twin, but Rachel still persuades her father Joseph to put his love for Jesus above his anger with Rome and hide Lucius until he heals.

Rachel cares for the enemy, and more than broken bones heal as duty turns to love. Lucius embraces Joseph’s faith in Jesus, but sharing a faith doesn’t heal all wounds. Even before revealed secrets slice open old scars, Joseph wants no Roman son-in-law. With Rachel’s zealot brother suspecting he’s a Roman officer and his own brother planning to kill him when he returns, can Lucius survive long enough to change Joseph’s mind?

Sounds great, doesn’t it? I read little bits and pieces while I was laying out the interior, and let’s just say it’s a book I’m looking forward to purchasing and reading when I have some time!

You can find the digital on Amazon now, and the paperback will be available November 20.

Cover Design – The Keepsake Legacies Series by Stephanie Grace Whitson

by Roseanna White | May 11, 2016 | Cover Designs

A few months ago, I had one of those heart-racing moments. On an email list I belong to, a well-established author mentioned that she was re-releasing some of her backlist and asked for cover designer recommendations. Obviously, I offered my services. And was beyond thrilled when she hired me.

Because this is Stephanie Grace Whitson, whose books I passed many a teenaged weekend with. I have quite a few of them on my shelf to this day. So to get to help breathe new life into some of those older titles . . . well, that’s just pretty darn cool. =)

The first series up for new covers was The Keepsake Legacies Series: Sarah’s Patchwork, Karyn’s Memory Box, and Nora’s Ribbon of Memories.

First, of course, came the first one. Steph had sent along some photographs she had of the house she based the one in the book on, so I started there.

Of course, that’s just a little tiny photo, and it’s a scan of a paper photo, so I couldn’t enlarge it too much without losing quality. So I kept it small, and added in a big blue sky with some white clouds. Since this picture also ended rather abruptly, I also found another picture of a house with more of the surrounding area and stole some trees and yard and sidewalk. 😉

That seemed like a pretty good background to get me started; which meant it was time to tackle the model. This can be tricky for a historical. And especially tricky if you don’t just want to use the same stock images that everyone else is using. I do that sometimes, but I wanted something really special because this is Stephanie Grace Whitson. 😉 So I decided to build the models. Ahem. Just like Legos. 😉

I started with a model who I thought matched her character rather well.

I liked her hair, the way she was looking down . . . of course, the dress wasn’t right. And I wanted to get rid of that flower in her hair. So I copied some other hair from another pose of the same model in to get rid of the flower, and off I went to hunt for costuming.

I ended up choosing, in part, a public domain image of a dress from the appropriate era.

The styling was right, and I liked the white for this innocent young heroine . . . but it was way too frilly and over-the-top for her to be wearing on an everyday basis, and Steph had stressed “nothing fancy.” So I decided to turn it into a shirtwaist and use another image of a plain skirt.

Of course, I had to do some copying and pasting to get the sleeve to fit around the model’s arm, and paste the hand on top so it was interacting with this garment. Also fit the high collar around her face better with some copying and deleting. Love how it turned out.

I liked the composition of this, but I wanted a softer look. First I ran a Photoshop Action, which is a pre-set list of steps taken to change shading that you can overlay over a work with a single click. I also added a texture, to get this.

Then it was time for words. I started with Stephanie’s name, at the top and attention-grabbing. It’s in a standard font (one of my favorites, Linux Libertine), arranged so that the last name is as wide as first and middle together. To get it stand out, I faded a layer of cream out behind it, just a bit.

Now the series name. I knew this would have to be consistent across all the books, and I wanted to make it simple and elegant, but also easy to read in a thumbnail. I decided to put it at the bottom, with some elegant scrollwork behind it (and another faded layer to make it stand out). The font is the same as the author name.

Now, of course, the title. I wanted to combine the elegant Linux Libertine font with a beautiful script. so I went with Maphylla for the name and made it large. In typical me-fashion, I wove the two words together a bit, and also added a texture to “Sarah’s.”

I sent it to Steph, expecting the usual requests for tweaks and changes. To my surprise and delight, she absolutely loved it just as it was. =) Here’s how it turned out when I did the full cover.

Of course, the rest of the series wasn’t quite so easy. 😉 But I love how they eventually turned out too.

In these cases, the titles were simple, since I already had the fonts and positioning chosen. I just had to worry with main images. For #2, we were dealing with a sod house. Steph had sent a photo she had of one of those too, but I ended up using a stock image of the same one, from a slightly better perspective. 😉

She’s also sent me this image, as who her heroine was based on.

So off I went in search of a match. As I browsed model images, this one grabbed me right away.

There were similarities in the face shape, eye shape, etc. Of course, her hair was the wrong color, and she was a bit more glamorous than that black and white, LOL. But hair color can be changed, makeup can be digitally toned down, and I just loved the expression on her face. So I plugged her in, in front of the sod house.

But obviously the wedding dress wasn’t “it.” I put the same skirt on her as was on Sarah, changing the color, and debated what to do for the top. I decided a shawl might be cool, so I searched for images of a woman with a shawl. This one seemed promising, so I gave it a try.

Darkening the redhead’s hair to match the color in the shawl picture (which was the correct color for Karyn), I ended up with this.

Of course, I needed a background, and I decided to try a stormy sky. I put that in and then I put on the words and sent to Stephanie.

She wasn’t sure about this one. She definitely didn’t like the stormy sky (too brown–which I can certainly see), and was concerned that the model was too beauty-model and not “ethnic” enough. Changing out the sky was easy.

And I tried some other models.

Looking at them all side-by-side, Steph decided there was something about the expression on the first model’s face that called to her, too, so she asked to see that model on the brighter background. And we ended up with our final.

And the full cover…

And finally, book 3.

This one promised to be a bit trickier. Steph wanted the store in the background, which meant I’d be hard-pressed to have any sky in there, as there aren’t many pictures of buildings like that with sky behind them. But Steph found this storefront image that she really liked, aside from the incorrect words on it.

And she suggested this model for the clothing.

Now, I love this series of this model–so much in fact that I’d already used it for WhiteFire’s Austen in Austin. I really don’t like to use the same images for multiple covers, so I decided I’d just make it so different you wouldn’t readily be able to tell it was the same. 😉

To start with, I tweaked the building as needed, and even took photos of some hats and hatboxes lying around my house (ahem) to fill the window and put the actual name of the shop in the story on it. Then I put in this model picture and changed the dress to a deep red. (And deleted the poor woman’s head, since she didn’t match the description.

I considered a version of this model with a parasol, but the parasol would have completely obscured the building. That idea had to go bye-bye, even though I knew this one’s spyglass wouldn’t be able to stay either. Then I went searching for a face that would match her description of Nora. I fell pretty quickly in love with this lovely lady for my purposes.

She fit the image perfectly in terms of body positioning, etc.

Interesting tidbit–Stephanie wasn’t sure at first that she matched the description of Nora, so went back to find a paragraph in the book describing her. As it turned out, my wild guesses matched the description perfectly! Full lips, perfectly arched brows, honey-blond hair. Yay! Always cool when that happens, LOL.

But of course, this woman’s makeup was Too. Much. Especially that red lipstick. I found someone with a a natural looking mouth…

…copied just that mouth, and then actually manipulated its shape to exactly match the model. Voila.

The final step was to get rid of the spyglass in her hands and replace it with something more appropriate. I found an image of a closed parasol and worked that in there.

Which gave us our final front.

And of course, the full. =)

So there we have it! The complete Keepsake Legacies Series. I love how these turned out, and I was so glad to know that Stephanie was pleased as well. Soon we’ll be getting started on the second series she’s re-releasing, and I’m excited to see where that one takes us. =)