Outdoor Life - Pelican

I was on vacation last week, and got a chance to test out the new lens on something other than squirrels.  This guy was overly friendly, but had a sadistic streak a mile long.  He let me walk right up to him and take pictures.  He seems to like the attention and was preening.  When he realized that I was going to follow him around, he started moving up and down the fishing pier.  At one point he flew off into the water by the shore where my family was sitting on a bench.  After I trudged all the way back down the pier and almost to the bench, he flew back to the pier...making sure to fly directly over me along the way.  He was a smug little bastard when I got back over to him.  The guy fishing at the other end of the pier was laughing.


Location - Port Aransas, Texas

Grassman Process Images

Here is the work progression on the Grassman for the Dead Man Ohio cover.  Most of the detail work that went into it was lost once I covered over to the cartoon look, so this way you can see what I did.   These are all screencaps that I was sending to T.M. so she could see the work I was doing.  If you have any questions about what I did, feel free to ask in the comments.

1.  This is the original picture I took of my husband in our office.  The background has been removed and is on a transparent layer.

2.  Using the hair brushes, I layered from the bottom up using a two-tone color to created the body fur.  I thickened his eyebrows, added long hair (same brush, just larger size), and added a beard.  I went back in with some lighter and darker colors to give some depth.

3.  Using the skin wrinkly brushes, I added lines to the face to give it a more leathery, aged appearance. 

4.  I fixed his eye, sharpened the teeth, and covered over his metal cap on the bottom back molar.  I also a soft round brush and blackened in around the eyes, then set the opacity very low to give it a shadowed look.

5.  The lengthened the teeth some more and darkened the skin in.  I also added the skin wrinkles to the hands and drew longer fingernails. 

Dead Man Ohio Cover

I love doing the covers for the Dead Man Mysteries....especially when I get to turn my own husband into an Ohio Grassman.  The majority of the detail work I put in was lost when converting it into the cartoon style, but I have several progression images for that which I will put up on my blog later so that you can see it.  It was a huge hit with everyone, and my sister-in-law included one of the preview pics in her computer class final project much to the amusement of her teacher.

The pig was actually T.M.s' son's pig that I went out and took photos of.  It kept running away from me, probably because I looked at it like it was a pile of bacon, so it took a bit to get a few pics.  I also edited out a lot of the branding on the police car.


Kindle Link: Coming Soon!

T.M. Simmons: Website & Facebook


Stock Used:

Police Car - theshelfs.deviantart.com/art/D…

Skeleton - twins72-stocks.deviantart.com/…

Pig - own stock used; pack coming soon

Bigfoot -  Base Model: Jason Rogers (my husband); fur: www.creativemac.com/articles/v… ; wrinkles bongistka.deviantart.com/art/H…

Skull (in branding) - jennatalia.deviantart.com/art/…

Fonts - BONES (title/author) www.acidfonts.com/typeface/bon… & Garamond (branding)

The Wormhole Project eBook Cover v2

CL is working on getting The Wormhole Project ready for CreateSpace printing, and he wanted the cover to match up more with MP-1.  I used the same planet, background & moon from the MP-1 cover, and created the wormhole by distorting the nebula background in a separate layer.

The hardest part was finding the astronauts and satellite that was needed.  I eventually stumbled across Dollar Photo Club, a new stock site.  I had to get approved to join by sending them a line to my portfolio.  You can also get in if a member sends you an invite.  They have a lot of great stock and their prices are beyond reasonable.


Amazon - www.amazon.com/The-Wormhole-Pr…


Stock Used:

Planet - superiorgamer.deviantart.com/a…

Nebula - ineedfire.deviantart.com/art/N…

Moon - theedeonknight.deviantart.com/…

Astronauts/Satellite - Dollar Photo Club www.dollarphotoclub.com/stock-…

Wormhole - distortion of background; used 'Create a Wormhole' tutorial for reference www.durbanwebdesign.com/index.…

Font - Super Retro M54 www.dafont.com/super-retro-m54…

Tears for a World Full Cover

The second part of the Tears of a World commission.  The back was made using the same background stock from the front.

EDIT:  Caught and fixed a few typos on the back in the book description.


Amazon Link - Coming Soon


Back Cover Stock

Background - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Foreground - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Sunbeams - hand drawn

Font - Garamond


Front Cover Stock

Background - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Foreground & Tree - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Sunbeams - hand drawn

Ivy -  mysticmorning.deviantart.com/a…

Woman in Tree - mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/a…

Skeleton Woman Base Model - Dreamstime www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo…

Hair (Skeleton Woman) - cindysart.deviantart.com/art/H…

Skeleton Parts - markopolio-stock.deviantart.co… (back) & markopolio-stock.deviantart.co… (hands/arms)

Cracks - :iconxenomophaka: xenomorphaka.deviantart.com/ar…

Dress - designed & sewn by me; modeled on Barbie doll (stock pack available soon)

Font - Trajan Pro

Tears for a World eBook Cover

Here is the first half of a commission order for Tears for a World.  It the first in a fantasy trilogy that will be available in eBook & print (CreateSpace).  This one was a lot of fun, especially since it is my first hard-core fantasy design.  This took a lot longer then normal because of trying to get the woman in the tree to blend it (I had to start over several times) & because I had to make the dress.  I'm not used to using my sewing machine, so it took me a bit to get the hang of it.  The dress was made for a Barbie doll and modeled on one.  I originally tried painting the skin on it due to the difficulty of finding a model.  It ended up being too bright and not meshing in well at all, so I went back to looking for some model stock.

I also diverged a bit from the norm and used Perfect Effects 8 to help bring out the shadows, detail & to give it an overall surreal/fantasy look. 


Full Sized Cover - policegirl01.deviantart.com/ar…
Amazon Link - Coming Soon


Stock Used:

Background - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Foreground & Tree - elandria.deviantart.com/art/Th…

Sunbeams - hand drawn

Ivy -  mysticmorning.deviantart.com/a…

Woman in Tree - mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/a…

Skeleton Woman Base Model - Dreamstime www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo…

Hair (Skeleton Woman) - cindysart.deviantart.com/art/H…

Skeleton Parts - markopolio-stock.deviantart.co… (back) & markopolio-stock.deviantart.co… (hands/arms)

Cracks - :iconxenomophaka: xenomorphaka.deviantart.com/ar…

Dress - designed & sewn by me; modeled on Barbie doll (stock pack available soon)

Font - Trajan Pro

Outdoor Life - Cat 1

This is one of the kittens running around at my parents.  He followed me around while I was trying to get pics of the hummingbirds.

Available as a print on deviantArt.