I figured we were due for a cover design post. =) And since I’ve working on one of those this week, now seemed a fine time.

This time around, I’m working on a cover for the second book by one of WhiteFire’s authors, Cara Luecht. This book is set to come out early 2015; we’re in the editing process now, and since we like to have covers well in advance, we got to work on that side of things too. Cara knew what she was looking for in this cover, which always makes my job easier. She wanted a heroine in profile, at the top of the page, with her head only partially visible. She wanted her holding something. She wanted the title in the center of the page, and a scene that ties in with the book below.

So. I started by looking for good images of her heroine, Brianna. Brianna lives in Sweden in 1885; she has blond hair, which would have been worn up, and she would obviously be decked out in the fashions of the day. The story follows some of the first Baptists in Sweden from their home, where they were persecuted, to America. Based on the author’s family history, Gathered Waters isn’t just about religious freedom, though–it’s about a woman’s journey to finding who she is, what she’s called to do, in a world that would keep her in a narrow definition. Brianna has to find the strength and faith within her own heart to undergo this journey.

When looking for a good picture of a historical heroine–as in, one with her hair up–I’ve discovered that it’s often handy to look up photos of brides. That’s where I began. I searched for “blond bride profile,” and I found our Brianna.

I loved the hairstyle, I liked the way she was standing, and she was holding flowers, which would work well for me…sort of. Rather than carrying a bouquet, I wanted her to be holding a single tulip. But this lovely young lady got me started.

The next step was to flip her around and delete everything I didn’t need.

Obviously, deleting her dress leaves her with a floating arm, but that’s okay. I knew I was going to put some historical garb on her. I found some great, free images of 1880 clothing in profile. This is the one we decided on.

Putting the two together was a pretty simple matter of cut and paste…except for that arm.

Pretty funny, right? I know it gave me a giggle to have the arm sprouting from her stomach–but I knew the waist down would be faded out, so I could copy and paste the sleeve into the right place. First though, I had to deal with the color. While I really like the original color of the dress, the title wouldn’t show up well against it, so I wanted it to be white.

I’ve tried a lot of different ways of altering color, but for this one, since I was going white but wanted to preserve the shadows, the way to do it was to go up to Image / Adjustment / Levels.

Now that I had the dress the color I wanted, I worked on the sleeve. I basically just copied that portion of the image, pasted it, rotated it, and deleted the parts I didn’t want. Because the sleeve is large and stiff at the wrist, it covered the arm beautifully, with no need to convince it. And because the image would be faded out, you can’t see where the elbow folds would have been.

In the image above, I’ve also already added another touch I wanted–the color in the collar and buttons. To get that, I just pasted the original dress image overtop and deleted everything but collar and buttons, which were gold to begin with. I like the contrast this achieved.

I also already adjusted her hand a bit–because she was holding a large bouquet, her fingers were spread. To make her hold a single tulip, her fingers needed to be curled tight. So I just deleted the extra length of finger, careful to “trim” it around the knuckles.

So next comes the tulip. I found a picture of white tulips for free.

I copied a flower. I copied a leaf. I used the Warp feature to bend it a bit. Put it in her hand. And voila.

So there’s the top of the book. Now for the bottom. I was thrilled to find this gorgeous picture of a Swedish stream in winter. The water, the snow, the daybreak all play critical roles in the story, and the lighting here was just breathtaking. I am, as I’ve no doubt said before, a sucker for good lighting.

Isn’t it lovely?? Now, if I were to just plop it down, it would look like this.

Of course, I faded the bottom layer too:

We’re getting there! But I didn’t want a white background behind Brianna. So I instead made it a soft yellow and then added some lighting effects.

Muuuuuch better, right? I like how the colors play off each other now, and it’s starting to feel more harmonious. But I don’t just want a smooth texture like that. Upon giving it some thought, I decided a frost or snowflake texture would be cool. At first I think blue would be nice. So I decide on this.

 I try putting it over my cover, fading the opacity to 40%.

Which, um, no. Isn’t what I’m going for. I don’t like how the cyan blue works with the golds. BUT–I’ve learned that you can adjust layers in many different ways. Rather than keep this one “normal,” I choose “divide” in the tab on my toolbar, and suddenly I have exactly what I’m looking for.

Isn’t that texture nice?! I love it. So now for the words. I opt for the simple elegance of SnellRoundhand Script for my font. I decide to make the two beginning letters larger than the rest and line them up. Tossing in a simple divider and Cara’s name, I get this.

I really like this…mostly. But I’d rather, if the G and W are going to cross, that they actually join. I love the harmony of it when letters join up on a cover. So I rasterize those layers so that I can alter the font and create a loop. Like so.

Isn’t that cool? =) So then I just put it onto the cover, and there we have it! The final!