When I started on the cover process of the book, my initial instinct was to just use AI as I A) have zero artistic skills and B) didn’t have much faith I’d make back my investment in going with the traditional route. I spent $10 on midjourney and was thinking that would be the end of it. But as anyone who has used AI knows, it’s only so-so in delivering what you want if you have no ability to modify it (i.e. touch-up). There’s also ethical questions still being addressed around AI generated art, and I agree that the artists who are feeding that learning algorithm should be compensated. After some internal wrestling, I decided even if I just lose money this was my one chance to have a book with a real cover. So, I ended up going with Adam Kuczek at Venuslabs and am so incredibly glad that I did. Something I never considered was the process that goes into transforming someone else’s idea into a picture.
When we first started talking I sent a few of the AI (midjourney) generated images that I thought captured a bit of the vibe I was going for. See those below:
As you can see, they’re all ok but none of them captured the image of the city I wanted. I didn’t know what Adam would be able to do but I gave him the description of what the city layout looked like:
This city was founded in the jungles of Africa as part of a proof of concept for a multi-tiered city to handle overwhelming population. It’s a multi-tiered city composed of seven concentric rings and has three levels – ground floor, middle layer, and a top-side layer. The very center of the city has a gigantic building called the Kajo tower that is the only building to cross all three layers and is the first supporting structure for the city. On the top layer, it juts out as a black metal and glass tower, an ominous structure, tilted slightly to the side and then the top portion curving upwards. Each layer of the city is separated by strong structural plates that hold the city up and each ‘ring’ spreading outwards has its own purpose. The sandwich layer can only see daylight from the outermost rings, with the inner rings using technology to funnel some light in, but mainly having the ‘ceiling’ be a mass of electronic screens to display advertisements or false views of the sky as well as some rail transports that run on the bottom of the top plates. The bottom layer is mainly for foundational support, along with some mining operations and then farming in the outermost ring. A nearby river was diverted and surrounds the city before opening up to some farmland clearings and then the jungle itself. When the mists come and cut off contact with the outside world, they come down right where the jungle starts, so the river & farmlands are still present in the now enclosed city.
City design – I was thinking futuristic but the city is also a melting pot so a variety of styles can be utilized if we zoom in on an area in particular. The founding company was Japanese and has heavily influenced the city overall, but it has both western and eastern architecture. I’m a sucker for some neon lit signs, very Shinjuku/cyberpunk-ish, I also love some hanging lanterns.
Needless to say, although I’ve tried my best to convey the image of the city it is a bit confusing since there’s so much division between layers (vertical) and rings (horizontal), so Adam asked me for a simple sketch. Instead of sketching, I created a PowerPoint basic layout:
Adam took my AWFUL layouts and built a few 3d models. After some refinement we got pretty close to my vision, with some neat adds Adam did:
Side-note, in the first image above, Adam had drawn that cool connection to the Kajo-tower so I changed some of my description to include those separated bridges with views to the layer below. Sometimes the artist changes the writer’s ideas! 🙂
After getting that modeling done, Adam did a few different sketches (forgive the old title, was Demon City but then changed to City of Demons):
I liked all three, but decided to go with the viewpoint from #3 above, with the mists added in from #2.
Here was the first WIP that Adam did with color:
Side-note #2, I liked the lightning that Adam added in at the edges, so I changed the description in my book of the mist-filled skies to include occasional flashes of red (from the cover art) and black, which I thought was a cool contrast.
We were almost there, the only thing I wanted was a bit more mist and a bit brighter coloring.
Adam delivered:
The last step was deciding font on the title and author page. And let me tell you, FONT matters!!!
Here were the alternates Adam had suggested:
It really does make a difference. Ultimately, I liked the third suggestion and so he did that and we had a final cover:
