Cover Artwork
Here's a brief outline of how the cover artwork for the Onu Adventures was created. For more details, please read or listen to the "Cover Art" chapter in "Me, the Onu, and One More" -- Book4, which is probably going to be primarily available as a podcast.
Figure 3. Original photo.
Figure 4. Modified version of Figure 3, with enhanced coloring which emphasizes a blue arch in the upper left corner that would've wrapper over the title.
Figure 5. Stylized black and white of Figure 3. This was cropped and used as the Dezsma cover image.
The ice sculptures for Bolmek and Verdekt appeared in our copper fire pit one morning back in 2021. Figure 8 shows the scale of these two sculptures. Note the chair in the background tipped over by the wind. The "person" sculpture use for Verdekt is the prominent light white speck in the middle of the image and the "tower" base of the sculpture used for Bolmek is to the right of that, right on the edge of the picture.
Figure 8. Scale image of original ice sculptures for Bolmek and Verdekt.
Figure 9. Closer view of the two sculptures, Bolmek tower in the background.
Figure 10. Close-up of the Bolmek tower. I'm holding the camera at an angle here. The tower grew up, out, and over the thin crust of ice on the surface. Most of the tower was constructed of triangular "rings" with ice walls on the outside of the tower and the inside full of water. Note that the water is seemingly dripping over the top rings in the upper right of this picture.
Figure 11. Original image used for Bolmek cover. I'm looking down into the tower through the liquid water part.
Figure 12. Stylized black and white of Figure 11, rotated. This was cropped and stretched ever so slightly to create the Bolmek cover.
Figure 15. Original image. I'm close to the "person" sculpture from Figure 8 and Figure 9, positioned so the sun is highlighting the ice from behind.
Figure 16. Stylized black and white of Figure 15.
Figure 17. Rotated version of Figure 16. The pink rectangle represents the approximate section that was zoomed and cropped for the Verdekt cover.
Figure 19. Original photo. I don't have a good photo showing the scale of this ice sculpture. It appeared in our copper fire pit in 2024, close to the same location as the "person" used for the Verdekt cover. Interestingly, it was also about the same size.
Figure 20. Stylized black and white of Figure 19. The image was zoomed and cropped to create the cover art.
Book availability details on another blog post