Stu Tripney Book Covers

Stu Tripney Book Covers

I’ve been working with Stu for years now and I love producing the illustrations for his books. Stu Tripney is not the average author. He is the owner of the World Famous ‘Stu’s Fly Fishing Shop’ in Athol and a world-renowned fly-fishing guide and fly designer/ maker. He spends a few months of each year traveling to far-flung lands in search of elusive native fish. Along the way, the inevitable adventures that he embarks on have been crafted into a series of books.

Jungle Blues, Stu’s first book, is set in Malaysia. Chasing Tigers, set in Nepal. Trout Love is set in his very own backyard of Aotearoa and we’re currently crafting the 4th and 5th covers. Stu wanted an illustrative cover that sets the scene for the story within and contains details that are discovered and explained as the reader makes their way through the book. Each chapter has a small doodle on the first page also.

My technique for these covers is hand-drawn linework that is scanned at high resolution and digitally coloured in Photoshop with multiple layers of colour and texture. Each cover has a distinct colour theme designed to reflect the location of the story.