Back in 2012 I was approached to provide the cover art and design for the eBook The Four Realms by author Adrian Faulker.
Half-vampire Darwin stumbles across a corpse on the streets of London, and in a pocket discovers a notebook in a mysterious language. Divided between human ethics and vampire blood lust, Darwin finds himself both condemner and saviour of a race who’ve never considered him one of their own. Now, he must try and lead the survivors to sanctuary in New Salisbury before Mr West completes his genocide of the vampires in his quest to obtain the book…
Maureen Summerglass is eighty-two years old, a prisoner in her ramshackle home. She is afraid to let people enter in case they discover the oak door in her cellar. Threatened with homelessness and retirement from her job as a gatekeeper between worlds, Maureen breaks protocol when the death of a close friend is covered up… and enters the city of New Salisbury to search for his missing notebook. There, she discovers a world unlike the one of myth and fairy tale she imagined, and instead one of black market economies, brand names and tuk tuks. As she investigates, not only is she in extreme danger, but discovers she may be the first human female able to use magic…
Here’s what the author had to say about the project:
“My passion had always been fiction,” Adrian explains, “and the plan was that one day I would go back to that. I’d spend all day talking about other people’s creations and then never get any time to spent creating my own. The day I stepped down, I felt I’d made the worst mistake of my life. I felt literally sick. Then out the blue, I got a phone call and the most amazing pep talk from Hugo Stevenson of Stevenson Toys telling me why I was going to succeed. It was just what I needed.”
Three and a half years later, and Adrian’s first book has been published. The Four Realms is an exciting Urban Fantasy novel featuring Vampire genocide, shape-shifting cephalopods, kick ass elderly protagonists and shotgun wielding centaurs. Published by the renowned small press, Anarchy Books, the novel has already received plaudits from industry heavyweights such as Andy Remic and Gail Z Martin.
But it’s not just one member of the toy collecting community that has benefitted from the deal.
“I always remember Matt Cauley doing those incredible drawings of the toy collecting community in the style of Batman the Animated Series. I vowed then that if I could, I would get Matt to do my book cover. When I got the publishing deal, and was talking things over with my publisher they were very open to Matt doing the cover. He really delivered and even the publisher has said it’s their best ever cover!”
The piece was created using a mixture of acrylic and photo collage on board.
Here is the artwork without the cover type:
As well as the piece in-progress:
For more information on The Four Realms, head on over to the official site: http://adrianfaulkner.com/novels/the-four-realms/
Thanks to Adrian Faulker for the opportunity, and to Rishi Arora for helping out with the modeling assistance!
