Cover Art (Day 1)

It's Thingadailies time again, the month in which I create one thing per day and post it here.

Last year I went with the theme of "Space Kittens", and I'm not sure how I could ever top something like this.

This year I've decided to combine work and play to create the cover for book one in my new series. The book's title is All Gremlins Great and Small. As you might have figured out, the main character is a veterinarian.

This book is science fiction or maybe science fantasy, in the contemporary world. (Yes, the fact that I can't nail down the genre does not speak well for my ability to sell this thing once it's finished.) Like most of my books, it has a strong, competent female protagonist, and though there are some bad things going on in her life, overall it's a book that should make you feel good when you read it.

So... images. It's possible I should be using images of people on the cover, but I can never find anything I like, possibly because I hate covers with people on the front. (Am I shooting myself in the foot here? Possibly.) But I did find a bunch of images that I love, and this will be a series, so I'm starting with this (which I've licensed from DepositPhotos):

It's joyful, it's colorful, and the fact that a friend described it as related to Lisa Frank probably explains why I love it so much. In a perfect world, I would pay this artist a bunch of money to paint imaginary creatures in this style, but I don't make enough to throw that kind of money around, so I'm starting with this image.

Tomorrow I'll go over some of the things I need to modify in order to make this work as a cover.