Illustrating the Holy Ale: Layout Concepts

The Concept

I was commissioned to illustrate the front cover of Quest for the Holy Ale which was a dream come true: the book was being touted as being in the same mould as Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and I'd already heard word that the authors were interested in having the cover done in the style of Josh Kirby (who did the original covers for Pratchett's books).

The publisher was giving the authors a lot of control over how the book looked so the first thing to do was to contact the authors and see if they had any ideas for the cover. They actually had a very definite idea! They had been inspired by the video cover for Conan the Barbarian and since one of the lead characters in the book is a barbarian they thought we should emulate that cover.

The authors envisagened their barbarian, Terry, reaching for a pint of ale which was mystically floating above him. Either side of him are the other two heroes: Roffo the barman and the Monk. Gathered around the heroes are the multitudes of the various armies getting ready to fight the heroes in the climatic finale. Oh, and there should be pigeons.

An Alternative

I thought this idea was good but being the arty-type I wanted to offer an alternative. I suggested that the same scene portrayed from above might look more dramatic and would give me a better chance to depict the different characteristics of the armies.

To show what I meant I produced the thumbnails shown on this page (my idea on the left, theirs on the right). The authors were adamant – they wanted to stick to their own idea.