TMI Series | NEW UK COVERS Spotlight | CITY OF ASHES by Cassandra Clare | + A GIVEAWAY! #TMIblogtour

Hello and Welcome to the next stop in the TMI Blog Tour, hosted by Walker Books UK! I'm so thrilled to be apart of today's celebration for the re-release of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments series in the UK. This week the series was re-released with the new stunning cover designs. Each day this week one Shadowhunter fansite will be featuring a newly designed cover from the TMI series. Yesterday the cover for City of Bones was featured here, and today I'm thrilled to be spotlighting the new design for City of Ashes. 

TMI NEW UK COVERS SPOTLIGHT: CITY OF ASHES 

To celebrate the publication of these stunning new editions of TMI, out in the UK this week, we’ve teamed up with Walker Books for a blog tour to show the amazing artwork created for these covers.

Here’s the piece of art used for City of Ashes, and the cover – click on the art to see the intricate detail of it!

The artwork was created by Míla Fürstová, an award-winning internationally exhibited artist, who has shown in 20 solo shows in many countries, including Britain, USA, France and the Czech Republic over the last decade. During this time she has won 14 prestigious awards. Her work has become part of important private and public collections, including that of Queen Elizabeth II and the V&A Museum in London and has featured in numerous publications. She also designed the illustration for the CD cover of Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, a big reason why Walker Books commissioned her for these new covers.

Míla uses a print-making medium from the Middle Ages called etching:

- She uses a metal plate coated with wax
- She draws the illustration with a metal needle, exposing the bare metal
- The plate is then immersed in acid and the acid bites into the metal, where it’s exposed, resulting in lines on the plate
- The plate is inked all over, and the ink goes into the lines
- The plate is put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper and the paper picks up the ink from the etched lines, making a print

Using this method, she made an intricate etching for each book, drawing on a metal plate. This was then used to produce the print featured above, which we then digitally coloured to use on the cover.

The choice of illustration for each cover was the result of a conversation between the Walker Books designer, Maria, and Míla. Everything had to be approved at sketch stage, because once the illustration is drawn onto the plate it’s very difficult to modify.

So for each piece of art, Maria sent Míla a full cover briefing of 5/6 pages per book with a synopsis, symbols, objects and extracts from the books with descriptions of characters, scenes and locations.

The briefing also suggested a few ways that Míla could go with the piece for the book. 
Below is a snippet of the illustration briefing for City of Ashes

We could have Clary and Jace as central characters in this illustration. They are both fighting to stop Valentine from getting the Mortal Instruments and destroying the world. 

Valentine is hidden in a ship and the climax of the story is a fight in it. The ship could be illustrated in the background.

There could be one of Clary's sketchbooks on the illustration. Clary discovers she has the power to create new runes, and she will use the opening rune to escape from Valentine.

Míla first sent in sketches with her initial thoughts. Then there would be a bit of conversation about the sketch, before she produced the final etching on the metal plate to make the print with. Below is an example that shows the process.  
  

Below is the final etched plate for City of Ashes.

Tomorrow, visit The Mortal Institute to see the artwork from City of Glass!

The new editions are available in the UK this week.

Cover Illustration © 2015 Walker Books Ltd.

If you are in the UK, you can order them from Amazon, Waterstones and find them in your local bookshop.

 In Australia, you can order them from Booktopia and Bookworld.

These are UK English Language editions, but they are going to be available in a number of other territories. If you’re based in any of these, you should be able to ask your bookseller to order them in for you.

Singapore, India, South Africa, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, United Arab Emirates, Slovakia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Switzerland, Malta, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Jordan, Denmark


ENTER TO WIN

Thank you to Walker Books (UK), I've got an awesome giveaway! 1 winner will win the newly redesigned set of The Mortal Instruments. I personally think the new covers will look stunning on a bookshelf. If you'd like to enter to win, please fill out the form below. Please note this is for residents of the UK only. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good luck!