Final cover for Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation, #1 in the Miranda Trilogy.
The leg belongs to Ms. Wendi O'Brien. The original concept for this cover was based around a woman's leg and a bloody stiletto heeled shoe. Several angles were shot and with several different shoe styles, then compared. Stage blood didn't show up well against the patent leather of the shoes, and therefore had to be composited in later.
However, the back of the novel has a "bloody" high heel shoeprint across the cover. That was accomplished by having Ms. O'Brien step into a shallow tray of tempra paint, then repeatedly walk across large sheets of paper. The selected shoe print was then scanned and has been used as a composite element on several promotional graphics. For the Love Is The Bond cover itself, the print was converted to a blue color similar to the triskele pictured on the front, then haloed to make it look like it is flourescing from Luminol and a Luma Light.
Mr. Minton, looking to set a noire tone for the cover set, took the original color photograph of Ms. O'Brien and desaturated it to a grayscale render, before adding the blood as a single color element. This became a theme throughout all three covers.
Composited behind the leg is what became known as the "bond-o-veve", as it is a symbol used to represent many things, among them being the BDSM sub-culture.
Take note of the upper right corner of the cover, on the business end of the riding crop. Mr. Minton mapped in the crescent moon that can often be found embedded within his artwork for the RGI covers.
Image Copyright © 2005, Woodblock Graphic Design and Johnathan Minton
