Cover Art for Storm-Wing - Revised Version

I took to heart the comments on my previous post about how the scene appears to be underwater.  I was puzzled at first, until I realized it was an optical illusion induced by the width of the river in the background, which could be interpreted as the top of a body of water.  I never perceived it like that because I knew what I was looking at.  It threw the perspective off (something I'm shaky on anyway) and made the river seem much more significant that it should.  So below is my revised version.  I narrowed the river, removed the ripples (which I think were a distraction), altered the shape of the hills to emphasize the big flying critter, and added a strip of greenish color to represent more water in the background (this is supposed to be a swamp after all).  Let's see what you think of this.

 

Cover Art for "The Storm-Wing," v.2 of "Labors" + Publishing Update

I'm in the process of formatting "The Storm-Wing" for CreateSpace.  I'm taking it slow for two reasons: First, I want to give v.1 more time to become more widely read.  Nobody is going to buy v.2 until they've read v.1.  Second, I'm doing some last minute revision as I format, so that slows things down.  Actually, there is a third reason - I'm spending way too much time blogging, commenting on other people's blogs, and emailing!  But I'm enjoying that!  I have also done a back cover, but it doesn't have any illustrations.  It's just a plain excerpt from the text.  The map is nearly done -- I may want to simplify it a little.  When I'm satisfied, I'll post it on the Maps page.      

 

I would love to have some opinions on this front cover.  What do you think of the ripples in the river?  Water is the hardest thing to do with this Word program.  First I had it with no ripples, just the greenish swamp-water color, and it looked OK. Then I added the ripples and I think maybe it looks worse -- more unnatural.  What do you think?

 

 

       Obviously I modeled Hak'tuk the Storm-Wing on a pterosaur, with some additions and alterations.  He's a protoavian, actually, or a sauroavian.  He's quite a monster, meant to represent Hercules' Labor of the Stymphalian Birds.  But in my interpretation he's much more than a monster, as you will find when you read the book. 

       That's Za'dut in the background and A'zhu'lo at the right front; both have been knocked out of the fray, while our hero Ki'shto'ba stands its ground.  One way the Marsh Guardians fight is by shooting poisonous dung at their opponents -- you can see splotches of it on the ground, and direct hits are making both Za'dut and A'zhu'lo throw up.  Besides that weapon, the creatures fling feathers that penetrate like iron darts.

      The drawing will be trimmed at the black bleed line when published in print form.  I think this is a pretty eye-catching cover (lots of action) and it ought to show up decently in the Kindle version.