Hey, Folks! This is the place where you can see the vision of your fellow readers. What do you think the characters look like? If you want to submit some art of your own, use the contact form below! Or you can simply message me on Facebook with the art!

I will update this page as I receive more submissions!

Cover art Stuff

These are some things I wish to have on display for posterity’s sake.

This is the original cover art for Eye of the Moonrat, drawn in colored pencil by my brother, Justin Cooley.

My vision was that we would see Justan’s legs and the moonrats sneaking up behind him. He did a fantastic job with the art and, I think, captured the look of the moonrats perfectly. I used this cover art for the first year after I released the book. Then I started getting feedback from readers saying that they felt the cover did not look professional enough. This was around the time when I first discovered the work of Renu Sharma, who has been the cover artists for all my books since. I changed the cover. My mother still hasn’t forgiven me.

Here are a couple alternate lettering schemes I used with that original cover art.

 

Compare that to the current cover.

Next is the original artwork for “Messenger of the Dark Prophet”. The original title at the time was “The Edge of Might and Magic” but in the end we decided that people might confuse it with the Might and Magic games and I didn’t want to anger anyone.

The cover artist’s name is Sarah Alderete and I met her at a fiber fair in Idaho. She was selling pottery and I noticed that she was drawing this elaborate and beautiful artwork in a sketchpad as she waited for customers. I started talking to her and asked if she had thought about doing cover art. She was interested and I commissioned the cover that day. A few weeks later I received this image via email.

It is gorgeous work. I really wanted her to draw the cover for “Hunt of the Bandham” as well, but she did not have a computer and it was really hard to get hold of her. In the end I had to move on.

As for the cover art to “Hunt of the Bandham”, it’s a long story. I had an artist hired to do the art. I received it the day before I was publishing the book, but I couldn’t use it. Unfortunately it just didn’t fit the vibe of my books. In a panic, I called my brother and Justin came through for me again. I had already asked him to design a back cover featuring the sketches of Justan’s swords and in the end, we just used it. I think it works.

Next came Hilt’s Pride and once again, I looked to my brother for help. He came through big time, finding an image of an ancient book on a free photo site and altering it, placing a photo of the Prophet’s mountain in the center. Then my friend, Michael Patty cleaned it up for the Print edition.

“The War of Stardeon” was a difficult one. I had an idea of what I wanted, but Renu was having difficulty finding an image to work with. Fortunately, my other brother was going to film school in Florida and was able to go down to the prop department and get some friends of his to help take some photos. Here is the before image.

The concept was that we would feature Ewzad Vriil on the cover and that we would symbolize the women influencing him by the arm of Talon leaning over one shoulder and The Mother of the Moonrat over the other. What Renu came up with was perfect and one of my favorite covers. I still get a kick out of Jared’s face becoming the face of my most evil villain.

I had another issue with “Mother of the Moonrat”. My vision was for the shadowy figure of Mellinda to be lurking in the roots of her rotted Jharro tree surrounded by her children. When I revealed the end result I received complaints from several readers and my mother that she was TOO alluring. One went so far as to say that she didn’t need her favorite writer displaying porn for her children to see. I spoke to Renu and she graciously agreed to alter it for public consumption. Did the original cover go too far? Judge for yourself. Here they are side-by-side. Again, click to enlarge.

Tarah Woodblade’s cover was a fun one. I described Tarah to Renu and she found a fantastic site of a woman in Canada that makes authentic leather armor. We found a great picture on her site and got her permission to use it. Here is the before and after.

Next is the cover for Protector of the Grove. Here are Renu’s comments on it. “This one took a lot of time and painting. It was my first time painting an armor and that too without a reference, so it was difficult, but I think I pulled it off. The technicalities of the armor might not seem right but that is because it is supposed to be an armor made of magical wood that can morph. It is always fun working with Trevor H. Cooley as he pushes me to create stuff that I didn’t think I could but then actually end up doing. Special thanks to Jason for the wonderful model stock.”

Next is the cover art for The Troll King. I always find it fascinating to compare where Renu Starts to where we finish.

With Noose Jumpers, I changed the cover after a few months. I worked with my brother Justin to create the original cover. We were going for something symbolic of the story of the books. It turned out really nice. The thing was, it was the kind of cover that made more sense after reading the book. It wasn’t as eye-catching and action oriented as it needed to be. My narrator, the fabulous Andrew Tell, came up with an alternate version that really pulled the eyes.

The original

The current

For Tallow Jones book 2 my friend Ethan Nicolle, creator of Axe Cop and Bearmageddon designed the cover for me. He started with this composition page so I could choose how I wanted it.

I liked Tallow in the top right panel and the oxbear in the bottom right, so he sent me this sketch.

After I approved the sketch he did a quick photoshop mockup.

Then he went through a painstaking process of painting over the image to create the amazing final product.

Fan Art

I would love to see this section grow. Please submit your work!

Click to enlarge!

Here’s a fantastic Noose Jumpers poster by our very own narrator, Andrew Tell!

Here’s the Poster Art made for the Noose Jumpers  Short Film.

Tarah Woodblade, by Monique Renee.

She also created a time lapse video of her painting her picture while reviewing the book. It’s Awesome.

Monique then followed up with a picture of Justan and Jhonate from Eye of the Moonrat. Her video for it is a lot of fun as well.

Here is Andre Frattino‘s alternate design for a Hunt of the Bandham cover. I’ll bet you instantly know the scene.

 

Next is artwork by the son of Andrew Tell; the man who narrates my audiobooks. This is his rendition of Hunt of the Bandham. I’ll bet you can make out his Ewzad Vriil and the Bandham.

Talon/Clara fan art by @corbellations

Gwyrtha standing with Albert and Stanza, by little Miss Recinto

Fan Art by Dollarbrie

Here is a painting of the map of Dremaldria done by my little sister, Kirsten.

This next one is one of my favorites, The box that Ewzad Vriil found the Rings of Stardeon in. It was given to me as a Christmas present, hand crafted and jeweled with a steam rune, (a mix of the runes for water and fire).

Inside are the Rings of Stardeon themselves. They aren’t exactly as in the book, but you get the general idea.

Lastly, this is one of my own. This is one of the sketches from my notebook. It’s a drawing of Fist I made before I started writing Eye of the Moonrat back in 2000. You will note that drawing is not one of my talents.

Tallow Jones Fanart! A lovely reader sent me this for my birthday. demunarts.tumblr.com

 

If you have some art you would like to submit, send me a message using the form below. I’ll reply, you can send me the artwork, and I’ll post it on this page.

 

 

Desktop Backgrounds

Here are a few desktop backgrounds that I put together for a few contests I held on my Facebook page back in 2013. Feel free to use them!