About the Book Cover Design
For the novel „MARREK – Eine Reise zum Sakrament des Sterbens“ (Engl.: „MARREK - A journey to the sacrament of dying“), Author Tobias Rohde hired me to create a Book Cover based on the story and the leather-bound, dirty, and very lived/used journal the main character carries with himself. It should carry the experiences and signs of time, and be stained with old blood, ink drops, and some salt stains of old tears. Additionally, he wanted the main character's helmet to be slightly etched to the leather, as well as the text to appear so. For the backside, he hired me to create a symbol combining three letters which we collaboratively worked on until his full satisfaction.
Designing The Book Cover
For the process, I chose to go by photo compositing the whole cover in Photoshop and went to search good leather and dirt textures. For blood and ink, I used a mix of public Domain Pictures as well as tea blotches I dripped on paper, photographed, and edited to place on the textures. I did the same with the coffee mug rings. For the salt, I used the tea drops as well, coloring them white and working with layer masks to edit out invisible parts as well as to make them look aged and barely visible.
The helmet I drew by hand with a selection of sketch and pencil brushes and worked with layet masks and a slight highlight on the rim to "scratch it in".
This novel is a powerful work of insight and art and can be purchased here. It is written and published in German, with currently no translated versions as of yet. But for German speakers, get a copy, it's very meaningful and worthy.
