Our Lady of Blades by Sebastien De Castell

Bringing Our Lady of Blades to Life

One day I was having lunch with my writer friends Sebastien De Castell and Andy Peloquin, and we got talking about Sebastien's new book, Our Lady of Blades. He'd seen the cover — it was good, but the silhouette of the main character didn't read clearly. As I started thinking out loud about how you might fix it, Sebastien asked if I'd like to have a go.

Naturally, I said yes.

The original cover

The first part was the easy bit. I lightened the background so it sat behind the figure rather than competing with her, then added a subtle spotlight to push her forward. Straight away, the hero stood out.
From there I began illustrating her properly, moving away from the flat style of the original toward something more three-dimensional and natural. That one change transformed the whole piece.

Then came the hard part: the pose. Sebastien knows his swordfighting, so it had to be technically convincing — while I was more interested in what looked cool. Between the two of us, realism and drama, we eventually landed somewhere that worked for both.

The final result was well worth the effort.

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The final image/pose

While I was working on the cover, I also created a standalone character illustration, the kind of thing I could picture on a special edition.

Sebastien loved it and asked if I'd do portraits of all the key characters.

That meant real research — costumes, swords, architecture, all the details that make a world and its people feel real. Throughout, Sebastien kept pushing me: how the characters stood, how they held their balance, the way they gripped their swords. He never let a detail slide.

What we ended up with was a series that genuinely reflected the world Sebastien had built — as well as a cover that finally did its hero justice.