I first met Confessions cover artist Jeff Lee Johnson online when I was looking for someone to do the cover for The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume 2. Since Abyss & Apex magazine published both science fiction and fantasy, we wanted a fusion of Scifi and Fantasy elements. My concept was to have the Lady of the Lake receiving a sword from a robot. Jeff delivered!

For Confessions of a Female Safety Engineer‘s cover I wanted to riff off a joke I used to make, that every morning I laced up my (construction) boots, Xena-like, and would throw the ‘clipboard of death’ at anyone misbehaving on my sites. I found a piece of art that had the right attitude and told him I wanted her in a hard hat, safety glasses, and a safety vest, with the safety items and a clipboard in color, and the rest in black and white. Sketches and clarifications flew back and forth as the concept developed but Jeff got the basic idea right away.  Here are a couple of his preliminary sketches:

And the final concept:

Then all he had to do was make it into a wraparound cover.

Way to go, Jeff!

The title, text and such were added by a cover designer, and we’ll talk about that next.