Jon Wasik, author of The Sword of Dragons, requested a cover to emphasize a sword key to the overarching plot of the first book in his Sword of Dragons series. Jon later renamed the book Rise of the Forgotten: The Sword of Dragons Book 1 and hired a digital painter for a new series motif.
For this design, we took his original sketch and created the sword. Then, keeping things simple, we used a platelet pattern of dragons scales as a background. After colorization and shading, Jon walked away happy with his first cover.