Leaving the reader to guess at what the hero and heroine's faces might look like created mystery. It forced the viewer to dwell on the untying of her bodice. Occasionally the publishers give me creative latitude, and the results are like The Lady's Tutor . But I am a commercial artist, and I give my customers what they ask for. I asked who the actual customer was, the person who hires him.
Readers often think authors are more involved in the cover process than they really are.
However, I often get asked to do a cover because the author has requested me. I asked him if he had to pick only one of those as his source of training, assuming the other two were closed off to him, which he would he pick. If it weren't for my early tutoring, I would never have chosen the path to be an artist. On the other hand, my training at the Art Student's League was so good that my previous learning experiences pale by comparison. The least useful was my experience at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore.