James Owen's Search for the Red Dragon

Some multi-talented creators can write books and produce cover art for them. That's the case with James Owen and his Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographic series for young adults. The second book, The Search for the Red Dragon, was released this year. It's a gorgeous book in addition to a thrilling adventure, in no small part due to Owen's marvelous illustrations and cover art. The sketches above showing the creation of that cover art come from a page on his website where he details the whole process. I've posted the finished cover below so you can see the full realization of his vision.

The Search for the Red Dragon has been getting great reviews, and I recommend you pick it up. Here's a little bit more about the book:

It has been nine years since John, Jack, and Charles had their great adventure in the Archipelago of Dreams and became the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. Now they have been brought together again to solve a mystery: Someone is kidnapping the children of the Archipelago. And their only clue is a mysterious message delivered by a strange girl with artificial wings: "The Crusade has begun." Worse, they discover that all of the legendary Dragonships have disappeared as well. The only chance they have to save the world from a centuries-old plot is to seek out the last of the Dragonships -- the Red Dragon -- in a spectacular journey that takes them from Sir James Barrie's Kensington Gardens to the Underneath of the Greek Titans of myth.