Some of you will know that the very talented artist who designed the cover is my brother, Paul. Paul can be contacted through my website kevinmcleodauthor.com Just leave a message in the contact page FAO Paul.
When I asked Paul if he could do the cover art he agreed, and I thought it would just be a question of he drew the picture, coloured it and that would be that. How wrong I was.
Paul started by drawing each of the Vikings on their own. For this he used his graphics tablet to enable him to draw straight onto his PC. I posed for one of them holding a long broom (spear) while Paul took photos of my hand positions. Here is the Viking I posed for.
Next came the second Viking that we named 'Viking right' very inventive I'm sure you will agree. I'm not a writer for nothing you know :). Again Paul drew him in isolation so we got this picture.
Once the Vikings were drawn Paul drew the the third cover character (not revealing his name) and blended him with the background. He then 'dropped' the two Viking's on to the background and this is where the real work started. Paul explained he had to now change the skin tone of the Vikings and the light and shadow. The new background effects changed the shadows and the light sources so these had to be reflected in every element of the Vikings. This is the part of the process that took the longest, but the finished work was worth the wait...
You can see the difference in skin tones when compared to the original drawings. You can also see how the light has changed the shadow.
Those of you who know history may point out that it is extremely likely Vikings did not have horned helmets in reality. However ask people to draw or describe a Viking and the horned helmet takes pride of place. So we went with the image people relate to. Please visit the webpage at www.kevinmcleodauthor.com and also the Amazon page The Viking's Apprentice
This ends the art lesson!
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