starting the book cover in Illustrator

I began by using the template downloaded from the Penguin Book Award website i  emphasised the bleeds using the line tool to make sure that i worked within the correct space and filled the background with my chosen shade of red keeping the necessary  logos and  the barcode visible.

once i had a base to work from i started creating my design by drawing out the simple silhouettes using the pen tool. since the silhouettes were relatively simple it was a fairly easy process to generate the correct shapes.i  added a thick white stroke in order to make a bold outline that would seperate the black fill from the red. the knight is pretty much the perfect size but i may need to make the queen thicker when adding my female figure. after both silhouettes were drawn i then created a new layer ( i want to keep everything labelled, layered and organized something i neglected to do in the last project) and again using the pen tool created the bloodstain. i tried to make it look like the blood was dripping off an edge in order to have the drops cascading downwards to make a base that linked both the front and back together.

 

 

afterwards i then roughly drew out the outlines of my two figures on seperate layers again i used the pen tool- thankfully the outlines didnt have to be too neat or accurate since they were only supposed to be silhouettes so it was a quick process. although i did adjust my anchor points using the white arrow tool which did help to smooth out the shapes. in my pitch it was pointed out that the gun needed to be included in the knight so i added it seperately in order to establish the right proportions. i also thought that the female needed a more visible left arm in order to clarify the figure so i also added that shape as well. so far im really pleased with how it looks and the people although i'll have a better idea once i've shaded in the two characters.