Red Stone by Charlotte Ambrun

The first book cover reveal of 2023 is for Red Stone by Charlotte Ambrun. Red Stone is the first book in a fantasy duology about pirates!

I was excited to work on this cover because I wanted it to be red. Although no one specifically told me to paint a red scene, if you have a title that includes the word "red", you can't exclude that colour from the palette, right?

These are the sketches I sent the publisher for review.

I like exploring colour and light along with the sketch, right away. I think that showing a more or less detailed rough work in progress helps the client visualise the final cover. In this instance, I think I showed the publisher one more WIP once they approved the sketch, and then I delivered the final without any extra revisions needed, since we’d established all the important information between the approval of the sketch and the first and only work in progress preview.