The Making of a Cover

So yesterday morning I said I needed to work on the cover for Duke Noble P.I.: Rumor Has It.  Well, I had some free time and decided to use it to do just that.

I grabbed my camera and some props and went to work.  

Actually, the first thing I needed was a dust rag.  Man, that table was dusty.  So, I dusted and then moved some things off of it that are usually on it and started snapping away.  Just to get a sense if this would work.

Eh, needed to be darker and portrait instead of landscape.  So, I adjusted some things and lit the cigarette.

Looks kinda like a paining, doesn't it?  I was totally jazzed.  

And then I added words...

Good, but something still wasn't right.  I shifted the ashtray to the right, added another prop, and lit a new cigarette (cuz I smoked the first one*).  Huzzah.  

There you have it.  The cover for my upcoming release.  Might still need a tiny bit of tweaking.  The title banner needs to move a smidgen to the left, I think.  

Anyway, that table belonged to my parents.  It used to have Dad's beer stein collection on it.  And the vase once had flowers for my great-grandfather's funeral in 1957.  I got the ashtray at a thrift shop and it's mine.  The cigarette is Hubs' brand because my brand has white filters and I thought the brown filter would look better for this shot.  Threw in a couple of his spent butts, too.  Grabbed an old prescription and scattered the pills.  Voila!  The only thing I think might be an anachronism is the pill bottle itself, but I'm not going to worry about that at this point.  And the lamp is probably not of an age to be in the book.  Which is why I covered the base with a lacquer base filled with potpourri and the top of it is behind the title.

Cover creation magic, I say.

I still need to create cover copy, but that'll come along soon enough.  Excited yet?  I am.