Dreadveil Cover Art

For this I’ll give a quick overview of how the cover artwork for volume 1 of the series came about. All of this was made possible by working with the art studio Goodname.

Before any artwork was done, there’s a few tasks that have to be done first:

1. Prepare a brief for the artists to go over. This is a text document that outlines the setting, the environment, the mood, the characters, all those details. The brief should be as the name suggests, short and to the point. Think of this as a summary of the completed artwork in text form.

2. Gather references, or make your own. These should be minimal or not too specific, as you want to get the idea across while still allowing the artists to add their own style, touch and feel to it. You hired them specifically for a reason.

3. Provide all of this material in an easy to access location for the studio, or use the platform they have.

4. Ensure you have as much ready as possible before you begin asking studios for availability. Life is easier for everyone when you have everything on hand the moment they need it.

With artwork like this, you’ll be doing revisions and corrections for awhile. That comes with the territory, because as everything comes together you’ll start to see stuff you like with the idea, stuff you dislike with the idea, and stuff you can improve on.
Note that good artwork takes time. Studios are busy, so you need to be patient and let them work at their own pace or let them know what timeframe you have in mind before the work starts. Never rush anything you care about.

Remember that key artwork like this will always look way different on paper than it does in your head, so it’s important to get it out there so you can verify if its a good direction or not.

Here’s the progression of how the artwork came about, from starting sketches made during commutes to work, all the way to a finished product.

Concept Sketches

These sketches all show different angles of the scene, whether that’s from the front, from above, from the side, and so on. The idea is to provide a setting, where everything is positioned, the time of day, weather, and scale to ensure the final piece starts off with all of that in consideration.

Remember that it doesn’t need to be super detailed, in fact that’d make stuff more complicated. You don’t need to be a professional artist just to ask a studio for help with your project, simply do what you can within your abilities.
Keep it simple, get the general idea across, and let the artists take it from there.

For this, I drafted up the scene’s layout, the uniforms of the characters, the colors, and any designs on the character’s clothing.