Below are some of the original designs I had for the spread pages in the book (fig 1) that were meant to capture the most exciting moments. I then decided against the concept for reasons explained before.
You can also see a couple of possible sketches (fig 2) that would have filled in the blank parts of some pages and kept the underwater feel thanks to the sea life and subs.
Fig 1
Fig 2
From posting the above I then remembered to work on the possible covers for the book as I remembered those are needed to grab the audience's attention. I decided at this point that I wanted the images to show the small one man sub in comparison to the large scale of the underwater city in ruins.
Although I had come up with some good concepts, I felt that because my weakest drawing area was environments and perspective, that using an environment on the cover would look less professional and off putting.
Therefore, taking my family's suggestion that they thought the image of a giant fish eye on the cover would be awesome (as they felt this was a good tense scene), I decided to experiment with this concept for an hour or so. Using gradients and brightly coloured (but low opacity) brushes, I was able to create a great atmospheric image with a glowing eye. Thanks to the fish, seaweed and bubbles I was also able to suggest the size of the monster's eye and some perspective which helps make it clearer that the eye is behind a giant crack in the wall.
Overall, I am very pleased with the above fish eye cover as only those who read the book will understand what it is, whilst at the same time it's a rather mysterious cover that grabs any potential reader's interest without giving away too much.
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