Aside from being a writer and photographer, I am also a graphic designer who loves to create his own marketing pieces. One of the goals of my January photo shoot with the lovely Leslie Craven and body painting artist and film maker Juan Pantoja was to get some shots that I could use for a Planet of Eden book cover. During the weeks since the shoot, I have been working with the chroma key (green screen) shots and placing Leslie into environments that represent scenes from the story. A few of those samples are in a gallery on the ART page.
The photo that I chose for my second book cover mock-up was one of the outdoor shots. Leslie’s painted skin radiated in the natural diffused sunlight and provided a nice contrast to the vibrant colors of the tropical foliage behind her. When I added green to her eye, I immediately saw Eah (a lead character in the book) and knew that I had to try the photo as a book cover.
So…what do you think? Feel free to send me your comments.
Thanks go again to Leslie for her awesome modeling work. I’d love to see this on a bookshelf in Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million!
“Project Planet of Eden” continues!
Cover Design and Photography: Dan Whicker
Model: Leslie Craven
Body Paint Artist: Juan Juan Pantoja [Also check out Juan’s film studio, Dolphin Image Studios.]Photos on this page are protected by copyright.
4 comments
The book cover looks awesome! I also like the book graphic with the cover on it. Very creative. Would love to see this as a published book soon. It looks and sounds awesome.
Thank you, CasiaSol! It’s a mock-up, but I think it would be an effective cover. The current trend in covers is a return to using photos. This is especially true of YA fiction. To be sure, using a photo for a science fiction novel is unusual for the genre…but Planet of Eden is an unusual book! We’ll see what happens, but I am pulling for this one.
Really cool book cover! Great job on it!
Thanks, Arda! It was fun working on it. There were so many good photos from the shoot that it was difficult to decide which one to use. I will probably be using the other shots as special features when the book is published, so stay tuned!