02/01/2011

Making the cover for Hush Hush

When Simon & Schuster approached me to create the cover for the supernatural teen romance novel, Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick I was instantly drawn to the project.  For years I had been working on a series of winged female nudes in b/w and this assignment seemed a natural progression from that work.

After reading the novel I responded to the dark, mysterious quality of the Patch character, a fallen angel who’d been cast from Heaven, and sent several pen and ink sketches to the publisher.  The winning sketch is shown below, and although it’s rough, the concept shows itself.  We then searched the top model agencies in the city and settled on Drew Doyon who seemed to walk right off the page.  After an intense trampoline shoot we had plenty of images to choose from.  Combining that shot with pictures of feathers, and bird wings from my files, we ended up with the final cover.

Hush, Hush is a young adult novel written by Becca Fitzpatrick The book became a Best Seller in the New York Times List and has been translated in several languages including Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish and Portuguese.

all images ©James Porto 2011