The Christmas Cowboy
AUTHOR: Stuart Ward
ILLUSTRATOR: Isabel Robalo
PROJECT:
Book Cover Design (eBook)
Book Cover Illustration
This is a Christmas book for kids and families to read together during the holidays. As the story is set in the North Pole, the author requested a very colorful and wintery atmosphere with vibrant tones of blue and cyan, that could catch the attention of the viewers.
As the book is meant not just for kids but also for their adult family members, it was decided to follow a more realistic approach, instead of a cartoon style.
The three main characters — a giant horse, a cowboy and a small elf — are the focal point of the entire illustration that I created for this cover. This illustration was entirely made in Photoshop, with several versions until it was reached the desired result.
The main challenge was to represent those characters with all the details that were described in the text and still make them appropriate for a children’s audience. The vibrant colors were a big help to achieve that goal.
