MEET THE ARTISTS ROOSTER REPUBLIC PRESS

Ginger Nuts of Horror is proud to bring you the debut feature in our Meet The Artists series of feature articles, where we throw the spotlight on the cover book artists in the horror world.  Please welcome Don Noble and Nicholas Day from Rooster Republic Press.  

Don Noble.

Taking a commission for cover art almost always begins with this – Tell me about your book.

I've been making art and writing since my earliest of memories. I grew up on horror, and have been drawing/painting/writing it in some form or fashion ever since. I've picked up a lot of skills chasing dreams, from animation to film, and a long stint with music/songwriting – but while learning how to self-publish in my twenties, I took what I learned with traditional art and started painting in Photoshop to create book covers for myself and some friends. Along the way, I branched out to graphic design, and photo-manipulation. A lot of the covers you'll see from me these days blend this trinity of methods.

So, a publisher or author will reach out and see if I'm available to help with a cover. I'll ask them about their book. From here the process branches out in two typical fashions, either they already have an idea in mind, or they'll give me carte blanche to bring it to life from the details they gave me.

Of course, any artist wants free reign to interpret a piece as they see fit, so that's my preferred method, but I understand vision, and I have no problems trying to capture it with the best of my ability, and within reason.

But let's talk a little bit about the actual process of the art itself. I could bore you to death with a step-by-step guide of how digital painting isdone but I think this picture will help illustrate it better. If you've ever played around in Photoshop, you're probably aware of Layers. These are like sheets of glass that you can paint separate images on (I painted this with a mouse, and a Brush tip setting in Photoshop, much the same way you may have done in an old program called Paint). I rough out a cloaked body on one layer. I make another layer and paint a rough arm. Another layer for a rough head shape. I make a mental note of where my light source will come from and start playing with shadow and light.

---

Like writing, this is your first draft. You're just slopping it on the page to get the basics done. From there, I start playing with additional elements and adding layers. My goal here was a freehand light study. No reference images, just a digital brush, some color and a glow effect. I eventually add some texture elements behind the figure and more neon pieces, and top it off with several variations of an orange hue. Then I blend and change the opacity of layers until it just looks right. Tinker with some fonts until they look good. By the time it's done, it's about 25-30 layers in total. And this is a pretty simple painting.

Nicholas Day

When it comes to covers that are more based in photography, I have to mention my business partner, Nicholas Day, who is also a talented illustrator, writer, editor, and photographer and when needed, we will join forces and work a piece together (we both wear a lot of hats at Rooster Republic Press). So, for photography based works, I do a Frankenstein method. Most people call them composites or photo-bashes where you're cutting up images of people and things and blending them together, but it's Frankensteining to me. You might see a character as one whole piece for the final product, but every part of their figure may be several people spliced together. The house, trees, grass, the sky and the moon, the tentacles bursting out from someone's guts, all of them separate layers of photographs, blended together, topped off with some digital painting, touch-ups, rim-lighting and then finally color graded. It sounds exhausting just writing it out. I can only imagine how you feel reading it.

---

Very specific requests like this generally cost more money, because the labor in trying to capture and blend all those details takes quite a bit more time. You could give me a prompt however that goes like, “I need a woman running down a beach from a crab who has a knife and the fonts are reminiscent of a black and white sci-fi movie poster. The title is called KNIFE CRAB ATTACKS!” I can do that, and if you're not too worried about specific details down to the clothing, hair color, and what specific type of crab it is, I'll keep my prices lower.

And when it comes to pricing, I currently have two options available. The Carte Blanche option is the author letting me have freedom to build a cover as I see it. These are my absolute favorite and they can be made fairly quickly, so I charge a flat $200. I allow some tweaks and in some rare cases if there has been a misunderstanding of the story material, a complete revision. This usually doesn't happen because no matter what option we go with, the conversation about the book we have at the beginning clears all of that up. At a certain point if an author keeps wanting to tweak little details, I will give them a heads up that we are no longer really doing Carte Blanche and I will have to start charging extra.

The second option is the Illustrative option and it begins at $400 and can rise depending on complexity. This is for folks who have a very detailed vision. Detailed characters, multiple characters in detailed scenes  –  it's just more labor and time, and prices will reflect that.

For some perspective, some artists who work in sci-fi and fantasy will charge anywhere between $800 to $3000 for these highly detailed designs.

A lot like writing, making art can be a quiet, solitary affair. The hours are long, there are constant new things to learn or be enraged by, and health insurance is expensive. Both of them are jobs that no one really asked us to do, but we keep showing up to build new dreams anyway.

And I'm really grateful for that. Horror keeps my lights on. Horror feeds my family.

For more information on Rooster Republic Press and their services  check out the links below 

 About Us Page
https://roosterrepublicpress.com/about-us/

 Design Services Page
https://roosterrepublicpress.com/design-services/

Premade Covers Page
https://roosterrepublicpress.com/pre-made-covers/

check out today's horror book review below 

the heart and soul of Horror Promotion Websites