We have a cover artist!

W00t! We have a cover artist for Magic, Mensa and Mayhem!

The other artists I'd mentioned earlier did some sketches of Vern, and although they are very talented, they didn't get the feel Dindy (the publisher) and I wanted, so we started the search anew. We considered about a dozen other artists as recommended by friends and acquaintances. I perused art websites and DeviantArt... I was getting worried.

Last week, three talented finalists sent their sketches. One by Gregory Price made me laugh.



It wasn't quite Vernish. I sent him some suggestions; lots of suggestions. Maybe I scared him? Either way, he had a family emergency happen after Christmas and could not have completed the work.

Another artist, Justin Shauf, Sent me this one at the last minute. Can you believe this is his first time drawing a dragon?



My daughter, who goes by Amblifier, had a great sketch going, but at 13 wasn't ready for the assignment, and didnt' get the sketch done by deadline. However, her concept was very good. You may see some of her stuff on my stories I sell as PDFs later. She wants to finish her sketch before I put it up.

So, we have Roe. Yay! Dindy found him on Deviant Art, and he's doing another cover for her, so we know he has experience. Roe is from Brazil and had a comic-book style that I wanted for MM&M. English is his second language, so I was very impressed that he was able to parse my long-winded description of Vern and come up with the sketches above. (I sketched the changes I thought needed to be done.)

I'm relieved the search is over and excited to see what the cover looks like.

Want to know how Vern felt about being sketched? Go to www.dragoneyepi.net and read it for yourself.