Artwork & Creative Process

The artwork for Devils in the Windy City is created through a mixed digital process using Photoshop, digital painting, photo manipulation, compositing, traditional stock imagery, and generative tools.

Because the characters in Devils in the Windy City are fictional, one of my goals is to create visual representations of them that remain recognizable and consistent from one piece of artwork to another. I want Liza to look like Liza, Dmitri to look like Dmitri, and the rest of the cast to continue looking like themselves as I create new artwork for the world of the novel.

Creating the Characters

Some character artwork begins with AI-generated imagery that I use as source material, much in the same way I use stock imagery. These images give me a starting point for visualizing fictional people without using a photograph of an actual model or actor as the finished character.

The generated image is only a starting point. I do not simply ask an AI tool to invent a person and then use whatever it produces as the finished character. I develop each character’s appearance and continue modifying the source imagery until the person matches the character I have imagined and written.

In Photoshop, I may manually morph and reshape facial features such as the nose, chin, jawline, face shape, eye shape, brows, lips, hairline, proportions, and other details. Hair, eye color, skin tone, clothing, expressions, and other visual characteristics may also be changed or rebuilt as the character develops.

Character designs often go through many rounds of adjustment. The goal is not to recreate a real person. It is to develop a consistent visual identity for a fictional character.

Photoshop, Photo Manipulation & Digital Painting

Once I have source material to work with, I build the finished artwork in Photoshop. Depending on the piece, this can involve combining multiple images, masking and compositing, reshaping features, changing clothing or backgrounds, retouching, color correction, lighting adjustments, shadows, highlights, textures, effects, and other forms of photo manipulation.

I also use a drawing tablet to digitally paint and refine parts of the image by hand. This can include painting or rebuilding hair, refining skin texture and facial details, adjusting clothing, creating light and shadow, cleaning edges, adding texture, and painting over areas that need more control than photo manipulation alone can provide.

Traditional stock photography, textures, backgrounds, typography, effects, and other digital assets may also be combined with character imagery to create the final composition.

Some pieces require relatively simple edits. Others may combine many different source elements and go through extensive manipulation, painting, and refinement before I consider them finished.

Think of It Like a Digital Collage

The easiest way to explain my process is to think of it as a combination of digital collage, photo manipulation, and digital painting.

An AI-generated image may provide one piece I begin with, just as a traditional stock photograph, texture, background, or other digital asset might provide another. I then manipulate, combine, reshape, repaint, retouch, and redesign those pieces as I build the finished image.

The source images are ingredients. They are not the finished artwork.

Why I Work This Way

A novel gives me the freedom to create people who do not exist anywhere outside of the story. When I began developing visual artwork for Devils in the Windy City, I wanted the same freedom visually.

I wanted to be able to develop my own visual cast rather than have a character permanently represented by a photograph of an existing model or actor. I also wanted those characters to remain visually consistent as I created new artwork, promotional graphics, character pieces, and other imagery connected to the novel.

Using source imagery together with extensive Photoshop work and digital painting allows me to keep refining those fictional faces until they resemble the people I see in my head when I write them.

Digital Art and Changing Tools

Digital art has always changed alongside the tools available to artists. Photography, stock imagery, photo manipulation, Photoshop, drawing tablets, digital brushes, and digital painting have all expanded the ways artists can build and alter an image.

Generative imagery is another tool I sometimes use within that larger digital process. For me, it provides additional source material to work with. The creative process continues afterward through the choices I make about character design, editing, painting, composition, lighting, color, atmosphere, and the final presentation of each piece.

I decide what my characters look like. I decide what needs to change, what gets removed, what gets painted, what gets combined, how the image is composed, and when the finished piece finally feels like the world of Devils in the Windy City.

Fictional Characters

The finished character designs on this website are intended to represent the fictional characters of Devils in the Windy City. They are not intended to depict or represent any specific real person.

For information about ownership and permitted use of artwork and other material appearing on this website, please see Copyright & Permitted Use .