Folk tales of old featuring anything fairy tend to lend themselves better to horror than what we think of as fairy tales today. We were talking in the office about the cruelty of children and this struck me as something I could work with - and here we are.

I start with a 3D Poser render and make sure that I also render a geometric outline to add later. After adjusting the render a little, I take it into ArtRage and attack with brush and knife until I'm happy with it. It's then back to PS Elements to add the outlines and remove what I don't want of them, as well as make a few further adjustments before working it all into a book cover. (The wear and tear is a mix of brushes and damage scanned from some of my own paperbacks)

If anyone is interested, the fonts are Bridgeport, Guilford, Ascelon, Ripley, Stonehouse, and Sigmar One (pulp novels are probably the only type of book cover you can get away with having more than two fonts).

It's hard to know how long it took as I did it in odd moments over the last couple of days.