A Calamity of Mannerings - Illustrating a Book Cover

I just wanted to share one of my of my recent commissions, illustrating the cover and interior spots for A Calamity of Mannerings by Joanna Nadin, and share a little bit about that process. 

A publisher got in contact with me asking me to illustrate a book cover and several black and white spot illustrations for a book they described as I Capture the Castle meets Bridgerton. I love this era of literature, so this was the perfect project for me! Initially they wanted the cover to show the three sisters. I used the WebCam on my computer to take reference photos of myself in different poses, and referenced those to sketch the cover. I sketched cover in procreate on my iPad, as this allowed me to sketch directly on top of the book cover layout created by the designer, and allowed me to sketch each element in a separate layer. This meant I could move the characters around and see how they were going to interact with the text. 

The publisher then decided to go in a different direction and wanted to just show the main character with her suitors. I took photos of my husband in the poses that I needed as a reference photos (I’ve been strictly forbidden from showing those photos to anyone!). Because I was sketching in procreate it was really easy to remove the two sisters and add in the two male characters. Once this was approved I did a very rough colour mock up to check they were on board with the colour palette. 

I then created the final artwork. The colour is all hand-painted with watercolours, but the line work is added digitally, which makes it look very clean and fresh. We weren’t sure if we wanted some of the line work to be gold embossed, which is why we wanted to have all the line work on a separate layer.  I don’t normally use black lines work in my work, but I think in the context of a book cover, where you need to grab peoples attention and stand out on a bookshelf, it really works.

The book has just come out and I’m so pleased with how it’s turned out. The designer did a beautiful job, and the book itself is getting rave reviews.