the snow looks amazing, well rendered!

I'll give it a shot, why not. These are some of my recent favourites!

I really like the fourth, the story comes together well and I think it's the strongest composition.

@StudioLooong thanks, that makes sense I guess a fully illustrated book says almost as much about the artist as it does about the writer, so the quality of both go a lot more hand in hand.

@smceccarelli Yes, I completely agree, I don't think she necessarily knows that side of the market, it is most likely more something she wants for herself without the practical implications.

@Phil-Cullen thanks so much for this! That's super helpful. Yes, I have a system of stages in place usually to take payment in three installments or sodepending on the size of the project.
It sounds like you reckon this is mostly a question of work comfort and legal safety than it is prestige. My main concern was that future publishers I might want to work with might look down on self published works, but I'm not sure if that's a valid concern, and if it is not I'd be happy to proceed and figure out a good license for it with your answer in mind

Hey guys,

After posting a mock book cover on Instagram recently I had a commission request for designing a book cover for a follower who is intending to publish when's he finishes the book.
There is no guarantee of the publishing so her not finishing or self publishing are both options.

I've had a story synopsis and it's a fantasy young adult novel, nothing offensive about it, but I'm not sure if I should go ahead and quote her for the commission because

• there's hesitation about illustrating for self published books
• since I don't know if she's even going to finish or publish the book I'm unsure how to quote her. A public publishing license would be much more expensive than a private one. Is it wise to sell her a personal license and make clear that she needs to upgrade this later on if she wants to publish this cover?
  -she doesn't have a title yet and hopes hthe creation of the cover might help her clarify this in the process so it sounds like it's a bit of conceptual and unspecific work for now but that doesn't bother me too much

All in all I could really use extra money at the moment so I don't want to turn something down that I could easily quote around 300-400$ for even on a mostly personal license.
I'd like to take it for the work alone if the repercussions would be harmless. I've done a smaller commission for the client before and had no issues working with them.

How would you guys go about this? Would you take it? (Assuming a price can be agreed on) How would you quote?

Thanks for any input you might be able to give it's much appreciated!

@Heather-Boyd Thank you! Envy is exactly what I aim to inspire XD

Finished both of these now, am running out of time to do more tweaks so I ended up submitting the under the bed cover. I like both of these quite a bit and they've been great to work on.

I still see a lot of value in the feedback I haven't addressed in this, flipping makes a lot of sense, just needed to finish this up with something I was pretty confident with before the evening Can I throw two covers of the same thing on my portfolio I wonder? I like them both...

I too haven't had much time to take slowvember really slow this month, but I am still happy to say I spend a fair bit more time developing and working this one out. I needed bookcover examples for my portfolio, and this is gonna be one of them!
Hope you like it. Lots of great work this month!

I agree with nyrryl! That paint over works well. your colours are already almost there, but a nice bright glow from the fire sets the characters off more and gives it all a nice cozy diffused lighting. I personally don't mind the kids on the right being quite grim with each other. kids can take their siblings rivalrypretty seriously after all, and if you have the Mum smiling at their silly little hostilities I feel like it establishes all the family dynamics very nicely. Love the sheepish expression on the boy on the left XD Lovely piece.