Commissioned by my teacher to make a book cover for a fantasy/suspense story. I chose to illustrate The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. Along with the 9 x 12 inch book cover was to be a 5 x 6 inch inside illustration in black and white shown inside the book. For those who do not know the story, visit this link to hear it on youtube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUFqBKUwRe8
Above are my final thumbnail sketches before moving on to inking the wood floor, lantern and head under the floor boards.
Above is the inside illustration. I wanted to show something that I wasn't able to include on the book cover...that the unnamed narrator often talks about hearing sounds that drive him crazy such as the old man's heartbeat. To show this, I made an audio wave portraying noise, while hearts flow like musical notes until he finally admits the terrible fate of his actions.
The dark and dreary black and blue tones chosen for this cover illustration were inspired by the darkness of the story, in which the only color mentioned is the pale blue of the old man's "vulture eye" that is the beginning of what drives the narrator crazy to the point of murder. Also described from the story are a lantern used to spy on the man while he sleeps and the shadow of death lurking toward him. The type was put in the same perspective as the wall to add to the drama. Finally, the textures include paint splatter to portray blood, metal scrapes to depict the struggle, concrete to show the man is "stone-dead", and lastly a spider web focusing down to the old man's head inspired by this quote "I resolved to open a little—a very, very little crevice in the lantern...until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of a spider, shot from out the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye."
