The initial idea for the woman was to either use a stock image (couldn't find the "right" one) or photograph a soft, innocent looking 20 something woman, but the only person we found that fit the bill did not want to be on a book cover, so... 3D C.G. to the rescue!
The head was made in 3DS Max. The skin texture was composed in Photoshop from several photos from the 3D.SK human photo library. The skin texture was then de-saturated and the irises and lips re-coloured red before being mapped back onto the 3D head and then under-lit.
The hair was comped in afterwards and if you look closely it is a bit poor in the cutting out department.
Initially Margaret thought the face was too pointy and hard looking so with the aid of soft selection and several ffd modifiers the lower face and nose was shortened, the jaw line softened, the face shape made more round and "innocent" and the lips were reshaped.
I hope you will agree the end result was worth all the effort.
Here is the link to the book. Its a good one :-)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evil-Overdown-Hilary-Long-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01M9HP0EF/
http://andyevans-art.blogspot.co.uk/p/book-covers.html
