Book 1’s cover is still in the works, and though I’m itching to get the book out there in the self-publishing world, I don’t want to gnaw on my friend’s head like a carnivorous barrette, so I am being patient.  Anyway, I have more pics to show the progress!

Previously, in the land of the Book 1 Cover, we were this far:

More of the inking got underway, to this point:

I figured I should start mocking up what I wanted the cover to look like, so I slapped this together in GIMP:

This has a generic fabric background, my scruffy-as-hell logo idea, and a vague idea of the layout — so trust me, it won’t be looking like this, because other much better design-people will be handling this, rather than me.  Still, it’s the general idea.

Then we progressed to some of the more detailed ink work, like the wood-grain on the Guardian’s antlers:

And more of the Guardian in general:

However, it was at this point that I realized I didn’t understand what was going on with the twining tails.  Part of it was that I thought that upper claw was attached to the wing, but I in general couldn’t really figure out the anatomy so far, so I sketched up what I thought was happening:

Thus that other invisible orange leg there.  While my friend originally had another plan about the body, she made an alternate version for me to try to figure out the wing/claw overlap and other body issues (and also provided a color rough):

We both liked this body design better.  She also added a bit of distance between Ravager and Guardian, as well as acting on my idea of a feathered lizard tail for the Ravager (as both of the entities have lizard traits).

Moving on, she started formalizing the inks.

Which included adding the second antler:

Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out what she planned to do with the wing and the tail, because our color-rough discussion had the tail wrapped around the Ravager’s neck but in the image just above, it looked like it could wrap around lower than that — show a bit more threat from the Guardian’s end.  So I did one of my lovely sketches.

She responded with her prettier interpretation:

Which I liked.  So now we’re at the point of the most recent thing she’s sent me, in which the inks are quite close to completion, yay!

I think she just has to etch the dark part of the upper wing, detail the feathers and maybe the Ravager’s chest fluff, then finish the tail.  And then we shall have colors!

I’m pretty sure I’ll want this in poster-size for my room once she’s finished.  Can’t wait!