The Making Of A Cover

I am getting ready to release the second book in my Serenity Series and my fourth book so I thought it might be interesting to go through the process of making a cover.  I have a business called Raven Books and Design that employs my very creative son to make swag and my book covers.  he has designed all but one.  For a nineteen year old boy he is quite insightful.  So for the cover of TRANQUILLITY the first thing I needed was Quill, my guy.  I troll sites all the time looking for my characters and I buy the photos before  even have the books finished because they tend to inspire me.  So I found Lance Jones and waited and waited until there was "the" photo...and grabbed it.

Now I am looking at this picture and letting Quill tell me his story and surprisingly he begins to play the cello for a music appreciation class.  So I decided I wanted a cello on the cover.

 

So the trick is how to get the two images together to make an awesome cover!  Taking into account the theme of the Serenity series is Black and White.  Check in later to see stage two.