Fablehaven Book 3 of 5: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Here is book number 3 in the Fablehaven series.

Sketches:

Seth encounters the demon Graulus. I thought it would be fun to have Seth's hair blown back by Graulus's roar.

Hugo as the main focal point taking out dark centaurs easily.

The Shadowman lurks behind the kids.

Dark creatures vs. light creatures battle scene. This was the selected sketch, though the final art was streamlined down to just the kids on the back of the centaur plus a of couple dark satyrs. 

Poor Hugo, he gets denied again. The final art:

Fablehaven Book 2 of 5: Rise of the Evening Star

The second Fablehaven book is called Rise of the Evening Star. Here are the four ideas I initially sent to the client. Action seemed to be the key component they were looking for with this series of books. I tried to give them 4 completely different directions.

Here is the finished illustration. Looking at my sketch you will notice that Kendra is not there. In the book she is not in the scene at all. But for the sake of marketing, there she is.  In the story, Kendra is angry that she is not allowed to accompany her brother on a trip out to the swamps of Fablehaven. She protests that the adult's sexist nature is the reason. At least she gets her way on the cover! 

Fablehaven Book 1 of 5

Last year I was asked to illustrate new covers for the popular young adult series called Fablehaven. The story centers around a young girl and her brother as they adventure in a hidden refuge for mystical and legendary creatures.  Here is one of the first sketches I came up with for the project. The two siblings take a ride on the shoulders of a golem made of earth and stone. You'll see in the second iteration of the sketch that I switched the positions of the boy and the girl. Girls seem to be ok with reading a book with a boy featured on the cover, but boys don't seem to be too keen with reading a book with a girl as the focus. So even though Kendra is the star in the book, her brother Seth had to be the star of the cover.  I also backed things out a bit so we can see that Hugo the golem is in motion.

The client was most interested in the Hugo sketch as well as the following sketch that was ultimately selected. It depicts Seth climbing up to negotiate with the preserve's devious cliff troll, Nero.

 

Here is the final artwork: