We Have Lost The President

When author Paul Mathews approached me about illustrating the cover for his futuristic comedy, We Have Lost the President, I knew this would be a project that would not only pose new challenges but also be something very different to what I’ve done before.

The starting point was “Auto-Tech” robot, Brian, who despite only playing a minor role on the story, would be very present on the website and in the promotion of the ebook, so a design was needed for Brian, who was Paul described as being “like a dustbin”.

Having produced a few concept sketches for Brian, we agreed on a design, which I then took forward, knowing Brian would feature on the cover itself.

I produced various cover concepts, which included a headless president’s suit and various scenes of Buckingham Palace, which plays an important part of the story. 

However, we eventually settled on a view of an empty President’s office, being frantically searched.

For the final version, the character in the foreground was changed to a woman, but otherwise the composition of the piece remained close to my concept sketch, with added elements of stacks of paper, and the objects on the desk, which included a slightly comedic cactus, to inject a little humour into the already chaotic scene.

With the cover art complete, the next step was to bring it all to life with an animated trailer for the book. This was also an opportunity to emphasise the humour and originality of the story.

We Have Lost The President by Paul Mathews is available now as an ebook, from Amazon.