MARKED MEN

MARKED MEN, by John Mierau

“A stowaway on a train, running from something horrible, falls into the hands of evil men. Soon, innocent lives will be lost as human monsters will face something ancient, powerful… and hungry.” (via it’s page on Amazon.com)

Another short story from John Mierau, this one was quite fun to do. Originally, the tracks and the landscape were separate photos, and both daytime shots. Using the magic of Photoshop, this image transformed into a nighttime scene from the Old West, with an almost painted quality. Additionally, you would not believe how long I looked for a picture of a cowboy’s back with hand in just the right position. It’s amazing to me how dedicated you have to be to find the exact elements you see in your head when it comes to cover design. That’s by far more of a challenge than assembling all the pieces, in many cases. I finally found this guy, a free-use image (!) on Deviant Art, and added in the final elements of this cover.

This entire image was completed in Adobe Photoshop CS4.