Replicating the Book Covers of Angus Donald's Outlaw Chronicles

This is ENTIRELY unofficial and these books DO NOT exist - it was just me attempting to replicate a style and practice my skill set - as well as embrace my love of these historical fiction novels

They say never judge a book by its cover - and i have to disagree! Everything about a book cover should tell you what the story is about, the tone, the themes EVERYTHING! It should make you want to pick it up off the shelves or download it

I am a big fan of Angus Donald's Outlaw series of novels - currently sitting on 11 different books - based around a godfather style Robin Hood who lives through the biggest events of the 1100s and early 1200s. The Crusades, Richard the LionHeart, The Magna Carta and King John - they stick very close to the original events and facts that we know of the era and events with Robin Hood, Alan Dale and the rest of the gang in the middle of these historical moments. I love the books so much that i read them all every year and have done for the past 4 years

Previously I have a book cover design for a Newcastle United book - focused on the Kevin Keegan era of the 1990s by Will Scott and it was a challenge that I enjoyed and plan on continuing

In 2024 I designed 2 custom covers for Donald's King Arthur Novels - but they didn't fit the tone required and leaning too far into the fantasy element.

It was reading a tweet from Angus Donald that he had one of his self published novels re-released with a new cover design that it sparked som creativity within me and I decided to see if I could create a version of his covers, in his style.

Cover one was within line with the historical era and timeline of Angus Donalds novels - and focussed on the Battle of Alnwick Castle where King Henry took the crown of Scotland from William the Lion. I made up the title 'The Crown of the Kingdom' which was originally 'clash of kings' then I realised that title is part of the 'Game of Thrones' series and sounds similar to 'clash of clans' which is not the tone I was aiming for

I started by font matching an existing cover and downloading the correct fonts for the cover - I used a combination of Trajan Gold and Stickley Pro and contined using the title ROBIN HOOD as the key seeling points

The background was from Freepik of a medival battle against a castle (after an attempt at using a photo of the actual Alnwick Castle - which looked very tame!) - as the photo was in landscape i used the Photoshop generate background tool to ensure the picture filled the entirety of the cover.

The two warriors on the cover - I wanted to create the image of two very different men, from two very different countries - to sell the content of the book. My English Knight was originally a Crusader with the St Georges cross, but that wasnt right for the era and the characters are not templars or on the crusades - so I stuck with a red theme of the Knight,

He was taken from PNGTREE and then ran through AI to move him to a fighting stance.

The Scottish Warrior was directly from AI and I was desperate to avoid a 'Braveheart' look as well as keep a blue / green colour scheme to contrast the red English Knight.

I quickly removed the background of the Scot and added him to the cover.

The final details were to add a dust cloud at their feet and a light behind them to draw the focus on the fighters

The second cover was more of a generic design and theme - I went for a mystical theme and link back to the history of the GREEN MAN of the woods and its relation to the myth of Robin Hood.

I used an AI image of a soldier on horse back in a nighttime forest - cut out the foreground and used that on the cover. I then enhanced the background to make sure there was enough light - using the sillouettes of trees to frame the cover. The Green Man face was cut out and place within the forest and reduced the opacity to give it a ghostly look in the fog of the forest.

I thoroughly enjoyed creating these covers and tweeted them to the Author Angus Donald for his feedback - and he loved them, even earning me a retweet! Hopefully as he continues to self publish the adventures of Robin Hood he might come back my way and one of these covers may become a reality!

Check out the authors site here https://angusdonaldbooks.com/