We had some issues with Sylus’ face, but I think it was all in me not used to seeing him in a pose that offered more than a profile. It still feels a bit strange to see his face fully, but I know we got it right.
As always, thank you to @fire_locket for their artistic prowess and willingness to work with me on my beloved project!
*There may or may not be a small something something in the works… We shall seeeee…
Behold! The second full-page illustration for the print versions of “Eternity’s Irys”!
Apologies for the belated update, but it honestly slipped my mind even though I’ve been plastering it everywhere because just look at it!
@fire_locket strikes again with their crazy skills. I love how in love they look. It just warms my heart every time I stare at it.
Additionally it was with this illustration that we realized I’d given Rhett the wrong page dimensions. The result was just a little more arting on their behalf and NOW we finally have full bleed images!
Since I was so darn late to post this, have a teaser for the third, and final, illustration:
It’s not even done, but I love it. Again with the body language! I always want to say Rhett is talented, but its all hard work, practice, and developing skill. It’s not just talent, it’s effort and understanding the subject matter to an amazing degree.
If all continues apace, the third illustration should be done by this coming Sunday! After that, we have some touching up to do and then we should be all set to get some physical copies for selling come October!
To say I’m excited is an understatement. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m going to say it again. This whole project has become a dream come true and I couldn’t be more grateful to everyone who’s helped me get this far.
Stay tuned for more updates and maybe a way to preorder if you’re so inclined!
Behold! The first of three full-page illustrations that will appear in physical copies only! Taken directly from the pages of the book, it depicts a scene of great importance. No context, though, because spoilers!
It’s an absolutely stunning piece by Rhett that I plan on framing at some point.
Stay tuned for the next two as they are completed!
As you may have seen on social media, the official cover for “Eternity’s Irys: Two Minutes to Midnight” is now complete.
But how did we get here? A lot of work and effort between myself and (mostly) my illustrator, Rhett (@firelocket).
But what does the progress look like? How far have we come? That’s what I want to archive with this post.
Let’s start from the very beginning.
1: The Proto-Cover (2018)
Behold! The proto cover I made at the very beginning of the project. Why is the tentacle green? What is the brown thing? (It’s an antler) What am I even looking at? All excellent questions that have since been rendered moot with the current iteration. However, this comes from a time when I wasn’t being fully honest with myself. Still love that background image though! Used to have it plastered everywhere on the original site.
Honestly, I cringe at this version. It comes from a very misguided point of view and the design is just… awful.
2: A Second Attempt (2019-2020)
Another monstrosity by me! Hand drew all that stuff besides the stock silhouette. It still has a soft spot in my heart.
3: The AI (2022)
So, this image was made with midjourney. To me, I saw it as the closest I’d ever come to a relevant cover. Obviously you can see a lot wrong with it, but further toying only made it worse so I clung to this pretty tightly for the longest time. It was the first time I could visualize the concept of a cover for the book I’d worked so long and hard on.
Text was added by myself.
4: The AI: Round 2 (2023)
My brother made this image with some AI program. It’s better than the one I made, but it’s still problematic due to its origin. Still, it became the baseline for the direction I wanted to take a real cover if ever I got the chance to make one.
It was also the first cover to ever be printed.
Text was added in post.
5: The Official First Draft
The first sketch by an actual illustrator! I was skeptical of the gold and purple motif even though it’s canon to the book, but we ended up sticking with it.
After we went over a bunch of book covers and how I felt about them as well as referencing that last AI image, this is where we ended up. This is true beginning of our journey.
As you can see, there’s also a little illustration that didn’t make it to the end. We decided to take additional artwork into the book.
6: Behold: A Frame!
Some more refinement and a more established direction. I’d fallen in love with Rhett’s impromptu spine design and, while it’s unconventional and might not be the best direction, I pushed it.
We were going to put the subtitle on the hour glass, but man did that not end up going well in the end. I like how we resolved it in the final draft.
You can also still see a scroll on the bottom. That’s where my name was going to go, but we ultimately scrapped the scroll idea entirely.
7: Shading!
We spent way too long trying to realize my idea of making the mask look crystalline. The burnishing effect on the screws and frame were actually a happy accident.
Also worth noting is the smoke now has a definitive form. This is very very important.
8: The Final Form!
TADA!
Still needs a blurb, but here it is! The final cover for “Eternity’s Irys: Two Minutes to Midnight”. This is what you’ll find on shelves, should it ever get to them.
I won’t lie, at first I found myself detaching from it. It was so hard for me to accept that this was it. This was the one thing I never thought I’d ever have no matter how much I wrote, no matter how much I edited, I would never have a cover. Especially not one actually created exactly how I wanted it to be.
I remember going on Fiverr. I remember shopping bulk production sites. I remember googling assets and considering doing it all myself to avoid publishing anything with AI. I was about to accept that AI cover, even though I didn’t want to, but in a last ditch attempt to do something I actually wanted to, I made a Facebook post. Rhett reached out and the rest is now history.
The more I look at it, the more I show it to others, the more I love it. The more I can come to accept that this is, in fact, my cover. What a wild concept I thought I could only dream of.
It is currently in the hands of my publisher (brother) and I should have a dummy copy in a few weeks. I can’t wait to hold it all over again.
Other Things of Note
Beta readers are about half way through and are making some fantastic critiques! We’re aiming for their pass to be completed by the end of the month. I’m implementing their suggestions as they pass them along. It’s been an excellent experience and another thing I never thought I’d have. I’m so grateful to them, I was dead set on being the only eyes to look at it before it hit the wild because I was too afraid of it being torn to pieces like a previous version had been. That would have ended me.
But that’s not how it’s gone. Not at all. And I’m crazy grateful for that.
October deadline seems to be holding strong. Once the beta read is done, I’ll finish polishing, see if they’d be willing to check it again. All that would remain is the internal illustrations and then… Well, maybe one more dummy print before it goes live.
I love it so much. I’m so happy to see all the line work coming together. Rhett’s doing an amazing job and I can’t thank him enough.
With the bulk of the outlines done, that really just leaves details, colors and shading. I shouldn’t say “just” because that’s still an awful lot of work. In fact, I think that’s the hardest part of any project so let me just rescind that “just”.
We’ll also be ironing out text closer to reveal time.
But yeah. There it is. The bones of my book cover!
In other news!
I swore this was going to be my last editing pass, but something happened. I reworked a major plot point to remove some clunk I was struggling with. Which resulted in an entire rework of the ending, but that’s a good thing! I was really afraid of end being the weakest point of the entire book and, as it was, I sincerely think it was. It’s been messing me up for a while, but I finally have a clear path forward.
Things to look forward to!
Full cover reveal coming next month! I don’t know how much of an event it’s going to be, but I hope to make something of it for Pride Month.
Speaking of Pride, I don’t think I’ll be doing daily shorts again. A lot of my focus is currently on getting the book out the door by October. I might get a handful of shorts if any, but no promises.
All in all, it’s going well.
Here’s an updated timeline of events:
I’m still in a bit of shock that this is all actually happening. That I’m actually going to publish a book and its going to have an awesome cover AND there’s gonna be illustrations. I’m just floored by the thought of how amazing this whole thing is gonna be.
If you’re maybe a little excited, too, stay tuned for more!
Until next time! \o 🦑💜🦇 ^This is finally gonna make a whole lot more sense
Update! (5/10)
There’s been some developments and rather than make a whole new post I’m just gonna put it here!
I’ve been sitting on a Cricut Explore 3 for about 2 years now. With the book happening, I decided I wanted to start making use of it for in-house merch. Which resulted in trading my laserjet (for printing manuscripts) for an inkjet and learning how to print images.
Anyway, here’s my process, which I’m putting here for my own info as well as just sharing:
It was all pretty straightforward, to be honest. I uploaded one of Rhett’s pieces, it offered to remove the background, but he’d already done that for me, resized it and then created the offset. Now, my options looked a little different from her’s, but she helped me get my bearings. It took SEVERAL passes to realize I had to make the offset AND the outline white so it wouldn’t print.
The Cricut did a great job, but I was running into a quality issue that after finally eating something and thinking with a clear head I realized was coming from my printer. You see, the stickers weren’t pealing cleanly from the back. At first I thought the vinyl was old or something, but then my big ol’ pea brain turned on and I realized the printer was probably oversaturating the material. Sure enough, I came to a more solid realization when I smudged one of the stickers.
SO! As Kayla suggested, I opened the system dialog and made a few alterations. One being telling the machine I was printing on glossy paper and the second being changing the quality to “Draft”. Still not sure that second one mattered, but it was on a forum post about images smudging after being left to dry. My piece had been sitting for about an hour and still smudged.
ETA: I left a sheet out overnight and it still smudged. So, believe it or not, I consulted the FAQ that came with the vinyl sheets. Lo and behold, I was reminded DPI was a thing. Lowered that and printed a new sheet. Zero smudging. Additionally, the vinyl suggested I use the Cardstock setting and AGAIN, I got the results I wanted:
A stack of waterproof, free cut, smudgeless stickers! (end of edit)
Anyway, with those changes, we ran it again and here’s the result!
Please ignore the crease as I apparently don’t know how to handle stickers.
You can look forward to this and some other designs going on sale AND/OR be included in pre-order bundles! More to come on that soon!
As always, stay tuned! 🦑💜🦇
An additional edit:
Encountered a weird issue with this one during the cut phase, but it was probably because I put the sheet in crooked. Most of them came out just fine!
Eternity's Irys 