Sketch process....Percy Cover

As promised, I have posted the sketches that were created for the Percy Jackson cover (see post from July 31st, 2006).
You can see that the Editor, Art director and I went through a number of designs. Sketch one, although I still like it, did not have the ominous feeling that the first two covers had. You can see them on my website http://www.roccoart.com.
So sketch two incorporated one of the monsters from the book. Although a successful design, the editor felt it was too similar to some of the Narnia imagery. The third sketch shows three of the main characters in a snowy wood. Both the AD and the Editor liked this cover but we wanted to pull back a bit and seperate the kids. That led us to sketch four which we all liked alot. They took this sketch to sales and we were all hopeful, but alas, this book is coming out in spring and the snow was a bit of a turn off. I was starting to lose hope that I would nail this cover like the first two which were exepted after one or two sketches. So the AD and Editor suggested a scene when Percy and his Pegasus are on top of the Chrysler building in Manhattan. I came up with sketch five. Success! The only comments were to make it more blue, less purple and have Percy's face fall more into the shadow. The whole sketch process took a couple of weeks of going back and forth, but I think in the end it was worth it. I will know next week if the final painting is approved by all the powers that be. stay tuned.