Concept Art for the Magic, Mystery and Mirth Cover Image

During the book launch party for Magic, Mystery and Mirth earlier this week, we raffled off a poster-sized print of the cover's artwork. Today, I thought it might be fun to share a few of the rough sketches and concept art that went into making this wonderful piece.

Here's the very first rough sketch, done in a pocket-sized notebook.

This initial color concept was when I really started to get excited about this cover. Notice how some things, like the rider and alligator, remained very similar, while the genie here is very different from what ended up on the cover. We were even considering adding the puppet Lumpy to the image, but he didn't fit with the general theme and had to be removed. 

The alligator was drawn normally at first, with the dress added in later stages.

Similarly, the rider's cloak was added in later versions. 

The genie went through many iterations. Look how dapper he is in the bottom picture!

I like the design in this picture, but it didn't really suggest a genie, so we discarded it.

This was the last version of the genie before the final.

The dirigible in the mountains has always been my favorite part of this picture.

More dirigibles. 

The final version. I love this cover!