Q] Hello and welcome to Fantasy Book Critic. Can you tell us about yourself and how you came be in your current roles?

Tom: Hey, thanks for having us! I’m Tom, I’m based in the Netherlands, and I’m the Lead Art Director at Wraithmarked Creative. I also draw things.

I’ve worked in the ‘entertainment industry’ for quite some time, mostly in animation, games and collectibles, both as an artist and as an AD. I’ve read fantasy and sci-fi my whole life, am a big comic nerd, play way too many video games and am a Dungeon Master for two groups of players.

I’ve always gravitated towards fantasy and sci-fi art, so when Bryce o’Connor (WM CEO) approached me last year to make splash art for his Stormweaver series, I was instantly on board. Teens in alien sci-fi armor kicking ass? I’m in!

We both enjoyed working together, bounced ideas off each other, made some more stuff. We kind hit it off in a professional bromance kinda way and several months later he offered me the job of Lead AD, which I accepted and here we are.

Shawn:  Hey Mihir, thanks for having us! I’m a graphic designer (and Head of Design at Wraithmarked according to the business cards I accidentally drop in bookstores), primarily designing books (covers, interiors, cases, slipcases, and some of the cool foil bookmarks you can grab on some of the Wraithmarked Kickstarters… uhhh everything in and around a book pretty much I’ve worked on at some point or another).

I’ve been in the industry for ten years, seen lots of crazy shit, been part of lots of crazy-cool shit. But we can talk about that another time.

In 2018 Bryce O’Connor (the now boss-man of Wraithmarked) became a freelance client of mine and we pretty quickly hit it off. After a few years he started telling me plans of starting a publishing company. Our work together shifted fully to branding Wraithmarked, then putting out books under that label, and eventually he asked me to become the in-house designer for the company (I basically already was, but it became official in 2021) and I’ve been locked in his basement ever since.

Q] This is a joint question for you both (Tom & Shawn), can you tell us how the inception for these fabulous covers came to be?

Tom: Both ML Wang and Rob J Hayes had pretty clear ideas of what they wanted on the covers, but mostly let me do my thing and gave me feedback where needed.

ML wanted the cover to focus on Mamoru, Misaki and Takeru, with the ice dragon wrapped around them, and even made a quick sketch of what she had in mind. She had great feedback and a lot of references on their clothing, weapons etc, which was a great help.

Rob wanted two pirate ships clashing, a lot of pirates and ‘make it look epic’, haha, hell yeah. Both ideas, and ways of working with the authors, were a lot of fun. I learned a lot, got paid well, and on top of that, Shawn T King did his magic with my doodles, what more could I ask for?

Shawn: Bryce keeps me holed away, shackled to my desk chair. I very rarely see the light if it isn’t from the glow of a computer screen, nor feel the warmth of the sun on my skin but my body has become hypersensitive to the slight electrical heat given off by my computer and phone… 

Umm, sorry. I meant to say, while I knew about it, the concept and beginning of this project was largely done by Bryce and Tom while I was working on other things (we’re a small team and there was a lot happening all at once during this time)—I was brought in in full capacity later on to put it all together into the final covers and graphics you can see on the Kickstarter campaign.

 

Q] Talking about the design, the gold foil-look and borders look amazing. Was that the plan from the first or something that came later?

Shawn: Thanks! I kind of just went for a foil-heavy design in hopes Bryce would go for it hah. I love print embellishments on books: embossing, spot-gloss, foil, etc.—I don’t get to do much of that with my regular freelance clients, so it’s always fun to plan out what fancy stuff I can do with our Wraithmarked books.

It was my plan very early to make these fairly foil-heavy covers. We haven’t done that on anything else and I figured it’d be a nice theme to carry across a potentially (hopefully) ever-growing line of special editions.

 

Q] This is going to be an expanding design concept and with the spines lining up and showcasing different characters. Not only does this sound amazing, it promises to be visually spectacular as well. As a collector, I can’t thank you folks enough for this idea. How was this design conceptualized?

Tom: The initial idea for the spines came from Bryce o’Connor. It took us several iterations, and a lot of sketches, to figure out how we could make this work long term, without really knowing at that point what the next books were going to be. It got pretty insane at some point, super intricate, with scenery, different levels, perspectives and whatnot, before we realized that that all sounded really cool in our heads, but wouldn’t work in reality, so we toned it down. I’m really happy with the end result, but it did cause some headaches.

Shawn:  Yeah I remember Bryce came to me about it long ago and we bounced a few ideas off one another until he got the answer he was looking for, then he kicked me back down into the basement.

I’m super glad Tom was brought in for this as he is a very patient artist and managed to deliver some kickass work on the spines and covers (and endsheets), making my job easier and more fun.

Q] Tom, many congratulations on your new position as the Wraithmarked Lead Art Director, was this one of your first projects? Can you walk us through what you knew of SPFBO and how you came up with this gorgeous art?

Tom: Thanks Mihir! This was not my first project as AD, I was still freelancing back then, I joined WM as their Lead AD after my work on this was finished. ML and Rob did their own art direction on these. I felt very safe in their hands, hahaha.

Honestly, though I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, I only knew SPFBO from r/fantasy at that point. I had added a bunch of books to my to-read list, but hadn’t actually read Where Loyalties Lie or The Sword Of Kaigen yet. So, I had a great excuse to pick them up and read them. As a work expense too, nice.

Q] What’s next, will the follow-up books follow a similar design and art? How will you both tackle the other champions which range from grimdark to satire to cozy fantasy to romantasy?

Tom: I always try to adjust my illustrations to the mood of the book while staying true to my ‘style’. It can be a bit of a puzzle, but I’ve always managed to make it work. So, similar but different, in my case.

Shawn: My plan right now is to continue with similar foil-heavy cover designs. As to how I’ll tackle those, it’s impossible to say until we know which titles those will be and me and Tom can decide on the best composition. But you can rest assured they will look just as gorgeous as these first two 😋

 

Q] Thank you to you both for your time and consideration. Any parting words for our readers and what to expect next from Wraithmarked?

Tom: Oh boy, there is SO MUCH coming in the upcoming months… years! We’re already planning out projects for late 2026, it’s kinda crazy, ya’all. Great authors, great books. It’s going to be fun!

Shawn: I would just like to thank everyone who has supported us over these first three years of Wraithmark’s infancy. Without the readers, fans, crowdfunding supporters, none of this would be possible.

Next up for Wraithmarked is our deluxe edition for Travis Baldree’s Bookshops & Bonedust, which will launch on Kickstarter in October. After that I’m sworn to secrecy (and NDAs), but lots of cool shit.

And I’ve been told to clear something up: I’m not really locked in a basement… *slowly blinks twice*