Fortunately I haven’t done any of the illustrations in my books since the Aons in Elantris, and those were all redone in-house. I have very little talent with visual art, though for The Way of Kings I did get to have a lot more influence on the art than many authors might have been able to have. Irene at Tor was very good to work with; she gave me some leeway that she really didn’t have to.
I worked very closely with the artists to get what I wanted. Some of the pieces went through a half dozen or a dozen drafts as we explored and tried to feel out what was in my head, and have the artist add to that until we came to pieces that we were satisfied with. So it was a very interesting process. It wasn’t simply “submit a description, get a piece back.” It was “submit a vague description, talk to the artist on the phone, get across what I’m trying to do, send lots of examples of other art that’s like it, get some early drafts, nudge one direction or another, keep working on it.” Some of these pieces took months to do.