Heretic Spellblade 4 - Cover

Like with Demon's Throne, there's been a change in artist. In this case, the shift in style is more substantial but the previous covers had an incredibly strong style as it was, so trying to match that was foolish. I like the new cover, and it should enable some different designs with future covers as well. In an ideal world, artists would never change, but such is life.

The cover character is Alice. Ciana was originally planned, but Alice proved surprisingly popular on a poll done earlier on Patreon. It's also fitting given the focus of the book on the civil war in the Empire. Also, Alice's smaller breasts provide an excuse to focus on her legs on the cover, so it's win-win. The original draft had a much more... evil-seductive look on Alice's face (I'll include the draft for Messengers when I post the high-resolution version later).

Ignoring the poll, the reason why Alice is on this cover and not the final book is because HS4 is the culmination of Empire plot line. It's the civil war book that's been hinted at since book 1, and also the narrative midpoint of the series.

Ciana will be on the next cover, and I have a draft that looks pretty good. Whether Seraph gets a cover comes down to whether I split Book 5 into two books, as the final book is reserved for a special lady (you'll know who after Book 4). Compilation covers are something I'll worry about in the far future, once I've finished my current series.

Looking further forward, the semi-realistic painted look is one I love on the covers, but it's tricky to find artists for (and they can be pricey). I will need to improve the typography for future series, however - I've bumped into multiple issues with Demon's Throne and Heretic over typography and lighting, but have been unwilling to change typo mid-series.

Let me know what you feel about the cover, given it's a big shift. I've attached all four Heretic Spellblade covers for comparison (also because it looks cool).