Black Earth Cover Design

Well, here it is folks. A sneak peek at what I've been up to in regards to the cover design for Black Earth: End of the Innocence. It needs a bit of cleanup, especially the seam in the middle of the sky, but this will be the general layout of the front cover of the book.

I want to thank my wife and my good friend Jelani Parham for their assistance with some of the items in the design. The silhouette of the oak tree was actually a picture that my wife took when we were driving around in California and I took a nap on the side of the road. She caught a picture of the silhouette when the sun was rising at just the right location and time. She also got a nice picture of a starry night when we were out camping with her family and I used that picture for the stars behind the title. Then it was Jelani with his expertise who was able to pull the tree from the picture and slap it on an invisible background so I could use it for the cover. He also added some glow to that piece of clipart I am using for the comet. The font for the BLACK EARTH title was found through dafont.com, a website that specializes in free fonts. The majority of the cover is being created in a program called Art Explosion Publisher Pro by Nova Developement.

All in all, I like the cover immensely. It really portrays the symbolism of the novel, the end of the innocence. The oak tree was an idea inspired by the cover art to Switchfoot's Nothing is Sound album, whose song, The Shadow Proves the Sunshine is briefly mentioned in the Black Earth short story, Hidden Agenda. A poster with the album cover art is seen in the first half of Black Earth: End of the Innocence.