I illustrated Star Wars: The High Republic – The Quest for the Hidden City, written by George Mann. The project included a full-color cover and three full-color single-page interior illustrations. Continue scrolling to see the development process for the cover.
Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm Press
Editor: Kurt Hartman
Tools: Adobe Photoshop
I was given some excerpts from the book by the editorial team at Disney to get a sense of the story. The editorial team already knew what scene they wanted for the cover. They provided character designs and editorial direction to move forward.
I gave the editorial team a handful of layout choices. They made a few suggestions and ultimately we settled on a mix of two of the offered layouts.
With the layout selected, I moved forward with refining lineart and adding values to create focal points. I like to focus on values and contrast first before incorporating color.
I continued refining, beginning the rendering process and adjusting proportions and other details to achieve the best layout possible. As I reached a point with the value study where I could not refine further, I began adding color.
As I did with the value study, I looked for ways to increase contrast in the colors to direct focus to the characters. Throughout this process I also worked from a larger wraparound template so that the front cover illustration would extend to the spine and the back cover. Because the back cover would have the book summary and other text, I kept it simple.
I added some final details to make the characters pop and delivered the files to the team. Below is the final cover.
Finished? Click here to see the book's interior illustrations or return to the illustration page.