I have come today to proudly introduce the world to the lead character and voice of Eternity’s Irys. You’ve known him by name for a while now, but now you get to meet him in person.
Jeron Miles in all his full-color glory by @fire_locket
It’s a bit of a leap in plot to call him an Archon, but it sounded good so I went with it.
This rendition comes from the first half of the book as Jeron grows and changes quite a bit by the end, but for spoiler reasons, we’ll keep it simple for now.
He was born with Voidsight allowing him to see things most people cannot. In Qalian, he’s a what the called a Dalafaem or Veil Piercer. This means that he already had an aptitude for voidal magics.
Upon meeting Sylus, he was able to tap into his innate ability and manifest it as offensive and defensive spells in the form of music played from his mother’s guitar. Strangely enough, the guitar doubles as an actual ax when more close quarter combat is unavoidable.
He’s come a long way from being a secondary character and a mere friend of Sylus’ to being the narrator and calling the rotund Voidlord his boyfriend. I firmly believe he was always destined to be the true catalyst of the tale and I’m so glad we finally made it to this point.
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.
Earlier today I finished reading the entire physical copy of my book and it went so much better than I expected. I really thought it still needed a lot of work, but besides some small things, minor formatting issues, and a retooling of the literal last chapter, I think it’s damn near finished.
As you can see, the book’s been through some stuff. The dust jacket is in my commuting backpack and the hardcover has definitely seen better days, but it’s been places. It’s been to work, cafes, bus rides, home…
Every time I open its pages I find myself enamored with it all over again. I flip through the pages to remind myself that this is very real.
I wasn’t sure what to do with myself now that I was done combing through the physical book so I decided to just get to work transposing everything into the master file. Of course, after ignoring me all day, Zucca decided now was the time to get in the way.
I think once this pass is done, I’m going to see about obtaining some cheaper paperbacks and going through it one last time.
Other things going on in the background:
I’m trying to obtain permission to use the mandala artwork in the official publication. It’s up to the artist if they’ll allow it. If not, I’m going to see if I can commission something custom from the same artist. If not again, then I’ll have to go back to the drawing board with page artwork.
The cover art is on a bit of a backburner at the moment. Valentines Day, a holiday I don’t really care for, but its an excellent excuse for cute artwork of the boys, is approaching and said artwork is already underway.
I’m still aiming for a June 2024 release and at this rate that should still be very possible. I keep saying it as a kind of affirmation to remind myself that I’m not insane by setting a deadline like this.
Still feels incredibly surreal that I’ve gotten this far after all these years. I might finally be able to call myself a real deal author someday soon!
Eternity's Irys 