When I begin imagining a book’s story, I almost immediately start thinking about its cover too. It may sound strange, but I already have some covers ready for novels I will write a few years from now. Creating them helps me picture the book, giving visible form to a story that exists only in my head for now.
With Atsuko, however, finding that image took a long time.
The first novel I wrote, many years ago, was titled The Tenth Sign – The Senshi Mages.
I decided to feature Atsuko, the protagonist, on the cover. I already knew what she looked like, even before describing her in the novel, and I was searching for an image that matched what I imagined.
I spent hours browsing stock image sites, looking for a face I could recognize as hers. Back then, I did not have access to the artificial intelligence tools I use today and had to work with whatever I could find. Eventually, I chose a 3D-rendered girl who seemed suitable, bought a background as well, and combined the images. I colored her eyes violet, just as I had imagined them, and she became my first Atsuko.
Much has changed since then. I rewrote that book and the next three from scratch because I no longer felt they reflected how far I had come as a writer. As I revisited the stories and characters, the way I looked at that cover changed too.
The longer I looked at it, the harder it became to recognize Atsuko in the girl I had chosen. At first, she had seemed suitable, but over time, the gap between that image and the character in my mind had become too obvious.
I returned to the stock image sites and found another figure. She seemed better than the previous one, and I thought I had finally solved the problem, but eventually, that choice no longer felt right either. I had changed the image without truly finding her.
By then, artificial intelligence tools had arrived, offering me a different possibility. I could try to create the character I imagined by describing her and refining the generated images, rather than searching only among those already available.
One request was not enough. There were days of work, second thoughts, and revisions as I kept searching for a portrayal that felt right, until one day, the Atsuko I had imagined finally appeared.
She is the one you can now see on the cover of The Senshi Order, the first book in The Chronicles of Myoo. After so much searching, I could look at that face and recognize the protagonist whose story I had told on those pages.