Cover illustration + Cardboard cutout for "A Darkness so Sweet" by Emma Hamm

I finally get to share this cover I worked on quite a while back for the author Emma Hamm!! It was really cool to work with her again, as I actually designed some stickers for her like 8 years ago or something outrageous like that. She's wonderful.

I have some process things to show a bit of 'behind the scenes' of working on this!

First, we decided to do a little concept art of the male lead. We went for a buffer/beefier version and a more toned/slender look to see which she liked best. Obviously the beefy lad won hearts, lol!

Afterwards, she graciously let me go wild on figuring out what to do for the cover, as the book is set in an Underdark-esque setting inhabited by very handsome trolls.

Notes for the sketch were mainly focused on the female lead, Emma thought that she looked a little juvenile with the pose+ shorter dress and I agreed. I also thought I could add a little more interest to the far right by tweaking his pose a bit and adding some more mushrooms. And that's how we settled on the final!!

This year, Emma reached out to be again to see if I could paint a piece of her male lead for her to have made into a cardboard cutout for her booth at the author convention ApollyCon. This was ridiculously fun to work on.

I did a few 3D posed mockups using the model I'd tweaked/sculpted (I usually only sculpt faces, I have a pretty well kitted out library for streamlining creation of body types and simple props) earlier in the year. I've started doing this some for commercial work especially as it's a lot easier to make tweaks/multiple options with less headache.

Emma chose option B, and this is what I came up with for her! I wish I could have seen the cutout IRL, but I believe he ended up about 7 feet tall and I've seen the shenanigans people were up to with him at the convention on Instagram posts lmao!

Anyways, I have so many commercial projects that I can't share with you guys, so it's SO nice to be able to share one as I always put so much into them!! ;A; I hope this was interesting!!

I hope you are all doing well. ♥♥

~Lily