Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Phantom Bully!

Today marks the release of Jedi Academy 3: The Phantom Bully! Here's a look at the sketches I drew when I started thinking about the cover. For book covers, I usually try to come up with 10-12 ideas to choose from.

My editors at Scholastic and Lucasfilm look over the ideas, giving suggestions about what parts they like and which idea they like best overall. Then I draw a rough color sketch at actual print size based on their feedback.

Everyone gives additional feedback after that sketch - in this case, there was too much green and so the suggestion was to make the chalkboard blue instead. A few other tweaks, and the final cover art comes together.

The title text is printed green even though I draw it in black, and the other cover elements like the Jedi Academy logo are added from the previous books.