Yeah, I'm late again...But honestly I had nothing interesting to post about. That is until the amazing woman who designed my book cover agreed to be on this blog! It gives me a whole bunch of pleasure to introduce you to Terra Weston-Koster, the graphic designer behind my first cover, but certainly NOT my last!
Tell us about yourself...
Im Terra (Weston) Koster and I grew up in central Minnesota. My biggest passions in life are family, horses, singing and Art. Im a former Sailor (so please excuse any language slips and currently a graphic artist.
How did you become a graphic artist? What drew you to this line of work?
I love art in any form. I love drawing, painting, photography, throwing on a wheel, basically everything involved with art. I realized that the only way to make a living as an artist is by living out of your car… or about 100 years after you die ☺ So I decided it would be smarter to mix my love of art with Technology because that is never going to go away. I went to school for Multi Media so I could do everything from digital art to websites and photo editing.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I get my artistic inspiration from all different sources, from my kids to nature, animals and I love fantacy/SciFi.. However for book covers I definitely get my inspiration from the characters in the book! I love books that are so well detailed that there leaves no questions about the characters. That being said, it’s also interesting when a characters personality is very specific but their physical attributes are more vague. I think that helps the reader put themselves in the story.
How did you come up with that genius cover for 'Thoeba'?
There is so much emotion in Thoeba! Sorrow for her lost Love, Joy and discovering new things, anger at the demons that pushed her from heaven… and a snarky sarcasm as she deals with the new humans she meets. There was just no way I could fit all that on one cover, so I decided to use an image that shows her as overwhelmed as possible, and holding herself/the Energy for support. She clearly misses heaven so I wanted her to have her head thrown back and her face up.
She is an angel so of course I pictured her beautiful, and when she lost her wings the description of her scars was great, so I wanted to make sure she had a “tattooed scar” look instead of cuts and blood which is not how they are supposed to look. And although you cant see The Energy, you can see the necklace she is wearing. There is also a darkness with the demons so I had to add lots of falling ash.
Could you explain to us how the average cover comes together?
That depends on the cover. Reading the book to get a feel for the characters is a must. Sometimes it depends on the author as well. Many times there are certain things they just love and really want incorporated. It can be as elaborate as the whole theme, or something as simple as the font ☺
Then you have to think about your target audience. Just because it might be a cover that I personally love, if it wont appeal to the targeted readers it wont be good for the book. The cover needs to grab them long enough to get them to pick it up and read the back ☺ After that it’s a combination of cover, and blub that gets someone to read it.
I see your facebook profile photo has a horse. It seems you have a passion for them. Can you tell us about it? What else makes you happy?
I grew up with horses and I love to ride and show. I would live and breath them. My husband says my love of horses overshadows everything else, but he also says most people don’t have a passion that strongly for anything at all so its not all bad. We have some very good cow horses, and we compete as often as time allows. My kids have been riding since they were about 15months old, and my daughter is 7 and competes with me. The other loves of my life are my husband Scott, our daughter Shane and our son Wyatt. They are the 3 funniest people I know. I tell Scott that I was normal before I met him… and Im pretty sure I get my sarcasm from my kids.
Thanks so much Terra for my perfect cover art AND for taking the time to do this interview. You rock.
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