Nightweaver & Starchaser

Nightweaver

In April 2024 I was contacted by Karina Granda at Little, Brown for Young Readers (Hachette Books) about a unique situation. They’d acquired a book, ‘Nightweaver’ by R.M. Gray, which had already been self-published but needed a new cover for its big, trade publishing debut. I was sent a rough doodle by Karina herself (below, L), and looked up the novel’s original cover (below, R).

For the new cover, they wanted “a large image of the winged dagger wrapped in thorny roses” in my more rendered, high contrast style.

Below are the first round of sketches I turned in. There was a somewhat tight deadline..and the concept from the art director was so clear, I didn’t focus on big compositional swings, instead focusing on design details and variations on the set composition from her “doodle”

Revisions for this one were minor! Only the yellow crystals were added after the fact. I was also commissioned to create more roses for the spine, jacket, and sprayed edges for the deluxe edition. (Shown below.) The book was published February 2025!

In October of 2024, I got word that we’d be starting work on cover for the sequel, ‘Starchaser.’ I was sent a new doodle (R,) and a new central icon: a snake! Still with the ocean horizon, and tangled in flowers, but potentially at a different time of day. Sounded simple enough..but as it seems is often the case with sequels..what starts out easy enough, usually takes a little work to arrive at the destination!

The initial sketches I turned in are below.

But alas, the feedback for these was that the author “wasn’t feeling” the idea of a snake at the center any more..the new idea; a swan!

So, back to the drawing board, with two new ideas. (Below)

These weren’t quite right either..the feedback was that they felt a bit too young for the target demo. (Read: too CGI Barbie movie). So for the next round, I was asked to try the swan again, but with changes: a black one, closer up and not so..literal, swimming on the water, but iconic, floating in space. Or, as a shot-in-the dark alterative, upgrade the castle that’s been looming in the background to the foreground (below).

Of course the dark horse contender was the winner in the end!

With some notes (mainly about keeping the image central and keeping

to the precedents set with the first book), I was approved to move to final.

There were some minor notes about my inital final (below, L), and after they’d been addressed, still some debate over the time of day, still (below Middle, vs. below R). In the end, the rightmost version won the day. :) The final cover for Starchaser was just revealed and it will be published this fall!

Want to include one final, massive thank you to Karina Granda and the team at LBYR!