Paradise Lost

Illustration, 2009.07.15

I was trying to think of cool projects for myself and Goñi suggested that I recreate the covers for some of my favorite books. This is an awesome idea for several reasons:

• You’ve already read the book so you know what it’s about and you’re familiar with all of the characters
• Even if you do need to re-read the book to brush up on your memory, it’s a book you actually enjoy so you’ll zip right through it
• You can illustrate scenes or ideas that weren’t touched upon when you read the book yourself

My book cover, above, is for John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The idea is to have the wings start on the front cover and then wrap around to the back cover of the book. The figure is painted fairly realistically using acrylics while the wings themselves were done with colored inks. I wanted there to be a very stark contrast between the figure and the wings in such a way that the body itself is flesh and bone while the wings are a more abstract and graphic idea. Like pork chops with a side of calculus.

Anyway, I chose Satan for the cover because he’s actually quite a conflicted character in Milton’s poem and I feel like he would actually be a cool guy if he weren’t mucking about with evil all the time. You definitely get the feeling that Milton sympathizes with Satan because he is developed as a warmer and more complicated character than even God Himself. Oh, and I was also feeling very strongly about having feathers falling off the wings, so that pretty much cinched the deal for having Satan on the cover.