1. The first thing we need to do is have a conversation. Start by browsing my portfolio. You can choose a premade you love, or just get an idea for where to start on your custom cover. Then head over to my Consultations Page and take a moment to admire the header image, because dang I nailed it on that one.

2. Send me a message in that form. I’ll need to know your title, taglines, and author name of course (for cover requests). But I also want to know your genre/subgenre, audience, comparable books with covers you love, basic descriptions of any characters you want on the cover, and any items of special importance that need to be included. 

3. Wait in a state of heightened anticipation until I get back to you. But for real it won’t be very long. Maybe a day or two. We’ll have a conversation, hammer out some details, that kind of thing. Maybe become best friends I dunno. 

4. We’ll esign a contract. Don’t worry, it’s super basic and boiler plate. You can view a copy of it here. You’ll be required to pay a 25% deposit to begin work. There have been some scammy people going around requesting free rough sketches and then running it through AI generators to get a “finished artwork,” which is complete bull hockey. I’m not about that. 

5. After the deposit has been recieved, I’ll produce a starting sketch, put together a color palette, possibly get together a 3d model, get some fonts picked out. This will take me a few days. I’ll reach out with this rough composition, and that’s when we fix things that need fixing. It won’t look great at this stage, but trust the process. You will be able to make 2 free revisions at this stage.

6. Once the rough composition is approved, I will begin pulling it all together into a polished piece of art. After I’ve got together something that feels good, I’ll reach out to you for further approval. You will have the opportunity to make another 2 free revisions to the polish stage as well. 

7. I will do a final polish, make sure everything is perfect, and then we’re done. This is when the balance is due on your invoice. Once full payment is recieved, I will email you your artwork at full resolution and without watermarks. 

8. If you wanted to leave me a review that would be effing amazing. Reviews keep artists alive. It’s the only thing keeping my cold dead heart beating. That’s not true. It’s also chocolate. 

9. If you need anything at all from me at any point, just let me know. We’re best friends now, remember? 

The program I use for 90% of my artwork is Procreate. It’s a drawing app on Apple devices, and I have spent hundreds of hours learning how to make the most of its powerful tools. Like, at least 102 hours at minimum. My ambition is to progress to Clip Studio Paint, but not right this minute.

I have several sources for assets to make my drawing as efficient and beautiful as possible:

• I use Daz 3D studio to create posable artist models. This is a common tool for book cover artists, but I don’t render my final artworks in it. I just create my characters and pose them in this program. I export them (nude) and paint over the renders in Procreate. That is where I create clothes, props, backgrounds, and hair from scratch. I like this system because it lets me create a human figure with perfect anatomy every time – and fast. So fast. It also lets me play with pose and lighting right in the program.
• I use purchased stock photos from depositphotos.com. I purchase the Standard License for these images, which you can view here. For 99% of cases, this is more than enough. If you need to have the Extended License for any stock photos used in your artwork, just let me know and I can provide that free of charge.
• I also sometimes use justsketch.me to create starting sketches of human figures.
• Fonts from Fontspace. For my premades, I use the “free for commercial use” fonts. I ALWAYS check the licenses on these fonts to make sure they are ACTUALLY free for commercial use. For custom designs, I will purchase nicer fonts from the same place.
• Color paletts from Adobe Color. I usually end up editing these myself, though.

Some other programs I sometimes use if I just really need to: Canva and Photopea. But I mostly use those for things like bending fonts to specific arcs (Procreate doesn’t do this very well) and to create things like marketing imagery using the artwork I drew in Procreate. 

I NEVER USE GENERATIVE AI IN MY DIGITAL ART. I do not use it for reference, ideas, composition inspiration, color palette, touch ups, nothing. You can read more about my generative AI policies here.