The Stormglass Protocol

Client
Aladin Verlag

Topic
A wraparound cover illustration for the German edition of the novel The Stormglass Protocol by Tim Pratt and Andy Deemer.

Description
The novel is the first part of the Stormglass Series. The story is about an artificial species of aggressive honey bees. After reading the book, the illustration was completely designed by me. The design of the artificial bees is based on the descriptions from the book and the appearance of real honey bees. The motif on the back shows a key scene from the book, but without anticipating the plot. The final lettering was done by the publisher.

The full illustration before the lettering was added.

This is a quick realtime animation of the bee model. The movement of the wings isn’t supposed to be realistic, its intention is to add a bit motion blur to the tips. The greatest amount of work went into this 3D model of the bee. In its case I tried to be as accurate as possible (in a naturalistic way), while staying close to the descriptions in the book.