Art Drop | Welcome to Tikor Cover Illustration

You’ve heard the phrase, and maybe you’ve seen the cover, but what does the full illustration look like? It looks like Afropunk retrowave, that’s what. Tumo Mere has made another classic.

Welcome to the Retrowave

For the cover of Welcome to Tikor, I wanted to do something really special. I didn’t just want it to be just any illustration. I really wanted it to capture the soul and ethos of Swordsfall in a single image and I think Tumo nailed it completely.

This cover illustration really captures the experience I’m going to take you on in Welcome to Tikor. The bright and vibrant colors, especially the purple tones, are part of the Swordsfall palette. The wild and bold color is something you can see in many of the art pieces, especially Tumo’s.

You also get to see the double impact of both advanced technology and plenty of melanin. In the background, you have a hovercar, one of the modern forms of transport you’d see in major cities. It’s all about clean and efficient energy on Tikor and the hover vehicle helps show that. I think it also paints a great picture along with the vibrant sun and background.

And of course, you have the melanin. The real focus of Swordsfall. The diversity of it. The fact that it’s a sci-fantasy property with black people proudly on the cover and all throughout it. Finally, as a surprise, Tumo did two variations, a mask and no mask version that fits the modern times.

Welcome to Tikor is going to be an amazing book when it’s finished!