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Isn't self-employment fun? lol You get to wear SO MANY different hats. Yeah... FUN. (That's what I've been telling myself for the past 9 years ...someday I'll believe it lol).
hahah In all honesty though, I'd rather work for myself than for someone else. Even though the work hours would probably be better and I'd get paid more. Being able to choose your own projects and work in your pajamas is nice. lol
The site is looking good, by the way! :D
Thanks! I'm still tweaking stuff. Will probably be tweaking forever.
Yes, I'd much rather work in PJ's and bunny slippers at home, even if it's for less. When you factor in commutes, daycare and a thousand other things, self-employment can work out better. I have more than one family member with special needs/challenges. It's become clear that I really do need to be at home, and I'm hoping this will be a viable solution to bringing in the extra $$$ we need to keep things going. I realize a lot of that is hard work and self-marketing. The hard work isn't a problem, but I definitely need to up my game on the marketing, for my books as well as my art. The kids will be back in school in a few weeks and I'll be able to focus on that a bit more with less interruptions- for the first time in years!
Yeah, the self marketing is huge. Getting your name out there and your art out there is very important. Posting your work on as many sites as possible is a big help. I recommend DeviantArt, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Posting your art as soon as you get something new to share as well as adding the information that you're available for commissions, etc, can be your biggest marketing tool.
Shareable stuff is good too. This one's not perfect but I posted it on my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest just for fun. I was playing with fonts. Sounds naughty!
I could definitely do some inspirational quotes with fantasy elements in them. It's good practice integrating the text and images, plus I can put the logo with the URL on them to drive traffic.
And for anyone that wants to know:
I set up Google+ but can't for the life of me remember how to make that an easy to remember URL. Right now it's a bunch of garbled stuff that I'm not sure works.
"Playing with Angels"
Here's another free HD wallpaper. I was literally playing with one of Anagord's newest characters (Raisa) when this happened. I wanted to make her a centaur, but she's a G8F, not sure it's even possible yet. She wanted to be an angel anyhow- one with attitude! Love how it turned out. Had some fun with Filter Forge as well. You can really do some neat things with that program.
I was playing with Diomede's free book prop and came up with this promo for my website. I'm very happy with how it turned out, but was suprised by a comment about the angel's face. Someone close to me said it looked like she had plastic surgery that went hideously wrong. I thought that was pretty harsh, as I think she's very cute, but I'm finding people's comments about art to be an interesting insight into how they judge others and how they define beauty in particular. Some seem to have very narrow definitions.
This is the same angel you used for the wallpaper right?
Yes, she's looking at a book with herself on the cover
Sometimes when you put an expression on a character it looks different / not as good as a neutral face expression. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, so this is only my personal opinion. Her face looks fine/nice in the wallpaper, but not as pleasing in the book render. The render itself is awesome - great posing, composition, colors.
I think what's happening is that for some reason, at the angle she is at, its stretching her mouth a bit oddly. You may only need to rotate her a very small amount toward us to make the mouth look more natural. I think its a trick of the perspective because I think she is a really cute character as well but for some reason her mouth is a bit odd in the last one. I really think its just a matter of moving her head towards us just a hair.
I like the new book cover mockups. You're doing some nice work. My favorite, so far, is Fairest. There's just something about it I really like. Second favorite would be Remembrance. I just love the whole gothic feel to the whole cover.
As for the lips on your G8F character, I can see where someone might come up with that. My first glance I thought the lips were too big. However, there are people who actually have lips that big so it isn't out of the realm of possibility. I think the angle just didn't help for the most part. I think that can be true of real life photography, though. I've seen some very beautiful still shots of celebrities and models that were fantastic and, in that same photo shoot, there will be one or two where the angle just doesn't love the subject.
I'm curious what specs you're using for your covers on your site for both the cover and the thumbnail and how you decided on them. That is the part that always throws me about doing covers. Every site that I've looked at has some slight differences as to what they offer for indie authors. How do you decide what size to make the covers for anyone who buys a cover and stuff? How do you translate that into what your final product should be size-wise and resolution? Although, most places seem to have specs that are more than required by sellers like Amazon. Not that there aren't other sellers, but that is the big one for most indie authors. The math part always throws me. Not my strong suit.
Thanks, all. I'll probably redo her lips eventually but really don't have the heart to at the moment.
@knittingmommy The specs have been a bit of a nightmare to figure out. There's a lot of conflicting information floating around out there. I started doing them in 1:15 (or what I've seen referred to as 1:5 ratio.) I always go big, so I was doing them at about 2700x4050. Then I read it should be 1:6 ratio, so I made them thinner. That works fine if you're putting them on just ebooks and 5x8 print covers, but not if you're doing 6x9 covers. Now they're too thin. Very frustrating. So I went back to the 1:5 ratios. They really only need to be 1800x2700 for ebooks, but add 75 to each for print bleed, so 1875x2775.
CreateSpace and many other places have templates you can download for the print covers. I'm now fumbling my way through that, and so far, the 6x9 seems to be the way to go. You can always reduce a size, it's much harder to have to increase it. So go big. A default 6x9 template from Create Space makes it about 3810x2775. You can find them here.
Then there's another problem- say you design the front, and just want to plop it into the template so you can finish off the spine and back. Even if you have an indentical background to wrap around the cover, if you've done any kind of postwork, sometimes it just won't blend right- even if you do the same postwork to the other side:
I'm having to redo my cover over top of the template so that the background works better. I am sure there are easier ways, but this one is a fairly straightforward one:
I was just designing for ebook but adding the print and having to reverse engineer stuff is a pain in the rear. I'm sure I'm making a ton of mistakes and there are easier ways. I'm learning through trial and error. Seems like the best approach is to design both print and ebook at the same time over the top of a 6x9 template. I will try that with my next one and let you know.
I'm a total n00b at the print covers, and yes, the dimensions are a complete headache! You'll need to know your manuscript's final page count and what kind of paper is being used, etc to get an accurate measurement for the spine too. I'll be doing the print versions for Unlucky Charm and my redo of the Crazy in the Heart cover very soon and will probably learn more than I want to in the process.
Ingenue Vickie and Cheongsam Dress & Shoes
I was missing my V3s. It's been a while since I rendered them, so I decided to do a portrait with Ingenue Vicky and her Cheongsam outfit. The dress has the original textures, the default conversion looks pretty good. The shoes have Fabiana's satin shaders on them. The hair is Razzle Dazzle with Uberbase + Phil W's Hair Shaders at 60% over the original textures. I used V3 Manhattan's skin with NGS Anagenessis 2 shaders. (Click and zoom in for more detail.)
She wanted a closeup, so I did another. Getting the eyes to look directly at the camera on the Generation 3 figures is really tricky sometimes. Manually posing them can be a nightmare too- you have to do them one at a time and they can wind up cross eyed. That said, there are a stunning amount of morphs and injections in these older figures. Finding them can be tricky.
The dress does have some surprisingly good poses and morphs. Even the shoes have them. I used VWD on the dress anyhow in both images to make it look a little more natural. I find myself using VWD on new stuff too. Tired of the shrink wrapped look. I have some hair that's made for VWD, might try that too.
The dress looks fantastic. Remarkable how a few wrinkles can make it seem so much more natural and real. I don't know how much more effort it takes to add VWD to your workflow, but it sure looks good :)
Thanks, Worlds Edge! It's kind of hit and miss. I'm getting way less crashes now, but it still adds some time to the workflow. The results are worth it though. Here's one I didn't use it on. These are Jepe's Shiny Sheetz. I love them! So versatile. I think they would drape fine in VWD, but decided to use a tiny bit of postwork instead on an edge that was annoying me. This is Vyria for Arabella 7. Jepe's V7 presets seemed to work the best with Arabella. I think they're fairly similar in height, though Arabella is even thinner.
That does drape very well, looks natural. Nice render. Has an air of mystery and seduction about it.
Great image! I love Jepe's Sheets.
Thank you both! I like how that came out, but tried another method for the lighting and ended up hating it. I first tried doing layer canvases and I just don't get them. The results were grainy and crazy and just....awful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, probably everything. T
hen I tried separate renders of the subject with each light, then combining in Photoshop. Here is the result and I HATE it. The colors aren't as rich, and while the first image I did was grainy (because it was a test render) this one is just...dull.
There are problems with this render that I couldn't fix as easily either with so many layers. When you blend them via opacity, it's also hard to put anything behind it because the image is too transparent. So you have to mask in black and it takes forever. OMG, this is why I render transparent backgrounds in the first place, so I don't spend hours masking things.
The postwork methods after merging the light layers and doing the masking are nearly identical. but I felt like it was a lot of work for very little return. There are some interesting extra lighting details going on, but at the cost of the vibrance of the color it seems.
I've seen some gorgeous things done with this method, but either I'm too much of a n00b to get it, or it's just not for me. I like to keep it simple, then build from there. I'd rather take the time to get the best render of the subject I can and use one layer, then put in background and do postwork.
Alexander
Having fun with Lukas. He has a classic male beauty that makes a wonderful Alexander the Great! (Click and zoom for more details.)
Ran him through Topaz Impressionist. I really love the painted options in that plugin.
Some really stunning book covers Llynara!!!
But I really love the last render of Lukas that is true artistic talent!!!!
Your Alexander renders look awesome Llynara. You have a flair for coming up with dramatic yet simple compositions. I picked up Lukas too and used the same hair (it is quickly becoming my fave male hair), though I used a different color. I've got him posed but need to create an environment around him. I'm very slow at this, lol.
Very nice Lucas image. I love the touch with the map of Ancient Greece on the floor. The whole thing looks great.
Thank you all so much! This one was a lot of fun. Learning quite a bit in Photoshop and how to tie things together in postwork.
@Worldedge I'm so glad you think so! Most of my writing and artwork seemed to be very character focused. I try to keep things simple and let the characters shine. I find if I add too much I get lost in the details. This seems to be easier in images than words!
I had a lot of fun with this render challenge to make a magazine cover (click and zoom in for full size)
OMG that is creative and hysterical. I love it!
OMG! I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I saw that. I would have been spitting it out all over my monitor laughing. That's very cleverly done.
Love this- great thing to see in the am. Made me cackle.
Hee hee, glad I could make you smile. I'm finally learning to make funny art! Yay!