Relentless Blades Cover

I'm so excited to reveal the cover for Relentless Blades. It turned out fantastic. I couldn't be happier. The artist is Kaleem Ullah Tayyab. His work is fantastic. Check it out here:  https://www.fiverr.com/s/jjdBer9

Here is the initial concept design. The scene depicts the battle against the sorrow reavers. The concept was not exactly how I pictured it when describing what I wanted, but realized the error was mine. I did not specify that the heroes were outside among ancient ruins, and Kaleem made the artistic choice to have them be inside. Sometimes we have to allow artists some leeway to interpret things. As it turns out, I grew to love the design and we went with it.

Here is the initial version of the cover. I quite liked it, but upon uploading it to Amazon, discovered a few issues. The main problem was that most of Vig's right arm and leg were cut off on the cover. It was very important to me to ensure both heroes were shown entirely on the cover. I went back to Kaleem and had him make some adjustments.

Here is the final, full illustration. Since I was having him move Vig's positioning, I also had him add another sorrow reaver to give more of a sense that the heroes are in danger of being overwhelmed.

Here is the final cover with all the text added. Adding the text was an adventure in its own right, particularly making sure it aligned how I wanted on what becomes the spine of the book. I went through probably a dozen different font and color choices before settling on this. It turned out fantastic. I couldn't be happier.

Here's some behind the scenes fun. This was my quick, and not good, sketch of the basic concept of what I wanted on the cover. While this picture is not good, it did its job of inspiring what the final cover became in the hands of a real artist. 

I pictured Vig much like a ninja. This was the best way I could think of to give Kaleem an idea of how I wanted Vig posed on the cover.  

Here I am, giving my best Grim impression. As you see in the original concept, Grim had two swords. His signature weapon is the greatsword, so that had to change. As you can see, I don't mind potentially looking silly to help make sure the cover was perfect.

Here I am proudly holding the preview copy of the book. I can't describe how great it felt to hold something in my hands that I've been working on for almost two years. It was very satisfying.