Behind the Design – Cover of Sweet Mountain Music

Behind the Design – Cover of Sweet Mountain Music

by | Jan 8, 2014 | Books, Cover Designs, Remember When Wednesdays

Quick note ~ Don’t forget I’m running a giveaway of The Wyoming Heir!
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 ~*~

Last week I was in a designing groove, so had some fun with the next WhiteFire historical, due to release in May. Sweet Mountain Music is a really fun story set in the Pacific Northwest in the 1890s. Chloe Williston is determined to make a name for herself as a journalist and earn her father’s respect–and thinks the way to do it is to tag along on a handsome naturalist’s expedition. His search–for the legendary Great North American ape (a.k.a. Sasquatch or Bigfoot).

In a time when gorillas had just recently been discovered in Africa, the idea of a giant ape in North America was downright reasonable, and I just love the comical voice author Suzie Johnson employs as she combines history and romance with whimsy.
But here was my challenge as a designer–how do I capture the allure of the adventure but also convey the historical era? How do I make it look fun and compelling without crossing over into silly? And how in the world was I to find a model that would let me accomplish all this???
Well, I’d been browsing the stock image sites for a few months, trying various search options until I finally found a model that looked promising.

She has the right look for Chloe–honey brown hair, the old books in her arms are great. But I wanted a bit more quirk. And blue eyes. And the costume sure isn’t right–the shirt could pass, but that skirt is way too slim.

And Suzie specifically requested a pith helmet. So.

I took a public domain photo of this bustle-era dress:

and copied the bustle part onto Chloe. I tilted her head a bit to give her a more playful look, and also added a helmet.

The result was this model:

Definitely the look I was going for–I loved the contrast of the helmet that screamed “Victorian adventure!” with the bustle. The books speak to her ambitions, but also add to the contrast.
Next came the background. I toyed with quite a few before my hubby said, “You need something green. Somewhere where Bigfoot could be hiding.” So I searched for leafy pictures of the Cascade range, and this one really worked with my model picture.

Plugged it in behind her, adjusted some lighting, a layer for texture,

and voila. I did the usual dance while trying to find the perfect fonts and frame to offset the title, played with positioning etc. I landed on a combination I liked after just a bit of trial and error.

I just needed one more thing. Purely for fun. =) Something to harken back to that Sasquatch search. Something…something like this.

Nowhere too noticable, mind you. Sasquatch is a hard fella to find, after all. But I bet you can spot it. 😉 Here’s the final front cover.

I have to admit, I loved it as soon as it came together–it felt like “it” to me. So I sent it to Suzie, who agreed that it captured all the elements we wanted to capture. She loved it too, so there we go! The final cover!

While I was at it, I went ahead and built the full cover too. Back copy may yet be tweaked, and that endorsement is obviously a place holder, LOL.

Overall, I gotta say I love how this one turned out–which is all the better because it had me stumped for so long. But you know, for two days’ work, this was a lot of fun. Bring on the next, WhiteFire! 😉

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