This mystical artwork is a special edition fantasy book cover for author Izzy Fleay’s, Mystic City💕
The client wants a book cover that is dark and mystical at the same time. She also wants to incorporate the fox’s tail on the book cover. We’ve done various iterations of the concept and pose of the character and ultimately came up with this one. Below are the rough concept sketches and proposed colors.
One of my struggle in this piece is getting the colors right for the base color, as well as the perspective of the forest. You could see at first how dull the colors are, and although they’re not technically wrong, it felt flat.
So I used various blending mode and laid colors on top of the background to give it more color and life.
My favorite is definitely adding all those little flairs of blending mode magic colors, the small stars, flowers and sparks. I love how the tail completely tied in everything!
These are the other proposed design with different title fonts. A white soft brush is also added below it so the title would stand out no matter the color. I added a golden border, something that the original cover also has.
Final Cover Spread
Author: Isabelle Fleay | @izzyfleaywrites
