Railsea roughs

Today the young adult paperback edition of China Miéville's Railsea found it's way onto UK bookshelves all swathed in my cover design. Above are four roughs I produced when first asked to submit ideas for the cover (please click the image for a less teenieweenie version).

The brief asked for an image of a train with a boy hanging onto the front brandishing a harpoon. The giant mole, and the vast network of rail lines from the novel were optional. Once the possibility of including a giant mole has been raised however it's pretty difficult to prevent yourself crowbarring the critter in somehow.

The main task was to convey the dynamic adventure of the book. My Art Director suggested I look at some vintage rail posters such as the wonderful samples below, for their use of extreme foreshortening in conveying this sense of dynamism. As you can see from the roughs I stuck pretty close to their angles for my trains.

Two of these roughs were selected for development, but more on that in the next post. Railsea is available now from your local bookstore, or online naturally at the usual places. You can still read the first two chapters online here.