Book Covers

deathbycanon

So what should I be watching for in my inbox to get into this websinar later today? 

xmasrose

Look for a mail by "Events at Digital Arts Live" you should already have it.

Tobor

deathbycanon said:

Finally got around to converting some of my recent artwork into book covers.  BTW the Trolls one was not accepted by the gatekeeper at the book cover designer. :) Covers link to the original art in my gallery.

You're getting pretty good at this!

I have one suggestion, though. On many of your covers the title and/or author name are pushed to the very top and bottom. This causes an inbalance because there's such a void in the center of the cover. There are also mechanical considerations from things like trim and bleed. Even if these are ebook covers, the image can get cropped in thumbnails and cover images on Amazon and B&N. Give the text a little more breathing room.

Although it can be a mechanical contrivance , and can make for cookie-cutter covers, the rule-of-thirds can be used to help judge placement of graphic and text elements. If you overlay a thirds grid you can see the text is well out of bounds to make a good balance. The art is taking too much center stage, when it's really both art and text that sell the book. 

xmasrose

And another mail from "Paul Bussey at 3D Art Live" this time :

Title : Book Cover Art Workshop is in less than 2 hours!

both mails with the link to the conference.

deathbycanon

I found mine, it was thrown into the "promotions" folder in gmail. 

deathbycanon

Tobor said:

deathbycanon said:

Finally got around to converting some of my recent artwork into book covers.  BTW the Trolls one was not accepted by the gatekeeper at the book cover designer. :) Covers link to the original art in my gallery.

You're getting pretty good at this!

I have one suggestion, though. On many of your covers the title and/or author name are pushed to the very top and bottom. This causes an inbalance because there's such a void in the center of the cover. There are also mechanical considerations from things like trim and bleed. Even if these are ebook covers, the image can get cropped in thumbnails and cover images on Amazon and B&N. Give the text a little more breathing room.

Although it can be a mechanical contrivance , and can make for cookie-cutter covers, the rule-of-thirds can be used to help judge placement of graphic and text elements. If you overlay a thirds grid you can see the text is well out of bounds to make a good balance. The art is taking too much center stage, when it's really both art and text that sell the book. 

Thanks for the input Tobor  

Linwelly

did they tell you as to why the trolls was refused? I think its rather well done.

deathbycanon

Linwelly said:

did they tell you as to why the trolls was refused? I think its rather well done.

They never tell me why, they actually don't say it's declined they just never approve it so it stays in "pending" indefinitely.  

deathbycanon

Notes from today's webinar 

I looked it up, and I sold my 1st cover last July so I guess I have been doing this a year. I was way off. lol 

Anyway some of the  links I shared today in case you all missed them some have been shared here before: 

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/cover-templates  - this is Amazon's KDP - Kindle direct publishing - this is where you get your print templates when someone wants to buy a print cover. You will need to know the size book they want, and page count as well paper type - white or cream.

https://covervault.com/ - this is where I get most my mockup covers. You will need Photoshop and know how to use smart objects. You can also Google book cover mockups to find others. 

https://www.deviantart.com/frozenstocks/art/UNRESTRICTED-Windblown-Hair-Brushes-132680582 - unrestricted hair brushes by frozenstocks on DA I use these sometimes over or under 3D hair to add movement and flyaways. 

Linwelly

Thanks a lot for all the good info and feedback yesterday, everybody.

For completion I'll put up my two WIPS from yesterday up here

 

deathbycanon

@Linwelly I liked the 1st one of these. I think the skin it prettier on your figure and the text really pops. In the 2nd one the text gets lost in the chandelier lighting. Just my 2 cents though. :) BTW I read Taiduo, really interesting story line! 

Worlds_Edge

@deathbycanon all the covers are lovely.  The troll cover is very well done.  The only thought I have as to why it might have been rejected is, to my eyes, it looks the most like a 3d render.  The others might have been more post worked to make them look like 2d art.  Just a guess. assuming the gatekeeper/site prefer 2d to 3d.  That bias seems to exist in comic books as well so the "holy grail" for a lot of 3d comic book artists is to find a way to make it look 2d.

Tobor

I agree the Trolls cover is well done but if the book cover site ever visits the Daz home page, they would have seen that art for the last month or more as it was features very prominently. They may not understand the provenance of the work. They are used to most of their cover artists using purchased royalty free art from stock image providers. 

I've read about the 3D bias but I think that has related more to the Poser/V4 look of things. 

algovincian

Worlds_Edge said:

That bias seems to exist in comic books as well so the "holy grail" for a lot of 3d comic book artists is to find a way to make it look 2d.

Yeah - that bias/preference is alive and well for sure, and searching for the grail is a lot of fun!

- Greg

Fussel2107

This thread is pure gold. I just picked up Daz again because I need a mock cover for promo purposes. 

I have been creating covers way back when but holy hell, has it come a long way since then!

 

Linwelly

deathbycanon said:

@Linwelly I liked the 1st one of these. I think the skin it prettier on your figure and the text really pops. In the 2nd one the text gets lost in the chandelier lighting. Just my 2 cents though. :) BTW I read Taiduo, really interesting story line! 

Thanks a lot, I will work on both of them and post again, the skin certainly is one issue and i was thinking about the lights and the text mixing up as well. So more experimenting. And Thank  for reading, I'm glad you like it :D

philebus

I've not had much time to be popping by of late and less to be doing covers. I was dissapointed to miss another of the book cover events that I had signed up for but time just wasn't on my side. Anywho, a friend asked me to try and come up with a couple of covers for her so I put some other things to one side and produced these. They still need a little tweaking - and there is still my placeholder text where the back cover copy should be - but I'm hoping they're going to be OK.

philebus

Something for another friend. The figure is just a placeholder (I've used it before in colour), as I'm really just concerned with the actual cover design for a series, potentially by different authors. I don't think it's a project that will fly anytime soon though.

cherpenbeck

You have a very destinctive style. Should work with a series.

Digital Art Live

We have another webinar workshop this Sunday that includes sharing of book cover artwork. For those on this thread, it's a chance to connect with other artists like you in real time and share artwork, questions and tips in a live setting!

https://digitalartlive.com/event/comic-book-workshop-share-and-connect-with-artists/

Showcase, Promotion and Workflow Discussion

Share your Comic Book/Book Cover/Story World Artwork

Sunday 7th October

20:00 BST (London)/15:00 EDT (New York)/12:00 PDT (Los Angeles)

Creating an illustrative narrative is a challenging and yet fulfilling project. There’s a large amount of creative elements to consider! This workshop allows you to connect with similar creative minds, discovering tips, workflows, challenges and successes.

deathbycanon

I just sent this off but I'm pretty sure it will be approved, the new book for the underdog mage series. I had so much fun with this cover! 

BradCarsten

I've got my own thread in the Art Studio, but thought I should probably add my cover to this group as well just to keep things organised. I've followed this thread since the beginning and love the micro community that has formed around it, and am so glad that I can finally contribute something. 

 

deathbycanon

BradCarsten said:

I've got my own thread in the Art Studio, but thought I should probably add my cover to this group as well just to keep things organised. I've followed this thread since the beginning and love the micro community that has formed around it, and am so glad that I can finally contribute something. 

 

Welcome to the thread! This is nice work, great atmosphere 

philebus

Sorry, I forgot about that rule. I'll just note that The Scriptorium, whose fonts I've used a lot on my faux pulp efforts here, have a 40% discount this week.

Mod Edit to remove unsolcited off site Commercial link

ArtAngel

deathbycanon said:

Here is the series I am currently working on. I already posted the 1st one, but I have two more done for it now. It's a lot of fun. I used to read the 1st couple chapters before doing the cover but the author writes so fast that he has started putting pre orders up before the next book is even written. So now he sends me loose descriptions of what should be on the cover and then writes the cover into the story. He does insist on "colorful, interesting text"  but it is fun to turn his loose descriptions into covers. Beings the story isn't written yet we run into some funny snags. Like with the two mage's fighting as I was doing the work I realized I didn't have a location for the fight so didn't know where to put my fighters. When I asked him if he even knew where the fight was taking place yet - he was like "nope, let's put it in a keep, think medieval" 

Hubby and I were graphic artists for an international multimedia fortune 500 company that specialized in branded marketing.in 100s of buildings located across the nations. We had 401k plans, company paid rental cars, free trips to Europe etc. He got injured on job, I stopped working to nurse him (poor him) and during his recovery I revisited my earlier passion for writing and creating books covers. You are doing well. The thing you are doing better than some others is branding. If I tore your book cober cover into 4 pieces I would still recognoze them as the same brand. Good job.

 

Edit cover

ArtAngel

philebus said:

More playing about with colours, shades in one and contrasts in the other.

I think blood flows is the better of the two.

ArtAngel

deathbycanon said:

I have been taking a little bit of an art break, my Crohn's is in a major flare and I'm having to do weekly iron infusions to combat the anemia. I have had to do them in the past and never had any problems with them but this time around they must be using something different because the headaches are killing me and they last for days. I am one of those people that rarely get headaches and never something Tylenol can't take care of so this is really kicking my butt right now.  Here are a couple of covers I managed to get done before the infusions started though, old artwork, new covers. Feeling better today so hopefully I can get some new art done tonight and tomorrow, Friday is another infusion, luckily others have said these side effects get better with each one because I have another 4 to go before my levels are tested again. 

Night Hunter is best. Rule of thirds.

ArtAngel

UnifiedBrain said:

Here is my idea of a sci-fi cover from the 1980's.

 

Picture this as a thumbnail on an iphone or android. Limit fonts to 3 max. And revist your color chart. Nice cover but too many text colors.

ArtAngel

philebus said:

I'm not too sure how successful this attempt is - it's a bit late for me to take stock. I've spent a lazy day drinking lots of really good tea while listening to some old Morcheeba albums and for some reason decided to try something a bit different. Anywho, as it's been and age and a day since I was here, I thought I would post and say "Hi".

 

Love it!

ArtAngel

deathbycanon said:

ArtAngel said:

I bet you'd never guess, by my presence here, that I am a branding fanatic, which is why I dislike using different fonts for print  interiors versus ebooks, websites or epubs (which are zipped websites). The laws for font copyrights differ between US, UK, Canada and other countries and although I love free stuff, I typically shy away from unpaid font software and images. Unlike the UK, the US doesn't allow fonts to be copyrighted but software is protected under US copyright laws and US law considers fonts to be software ... so there is, in essence, an enforcable copyright protection on US fonts. Many font masters have patented such for added protection. Most font software, images and assets we pay for, have licenses that restrict use. Even Daz licenses have restrictions. Frank Martinez is one of several attorneys that specializes in font lawsuits and his repertoire includes a suite against NBCU and Univeral studios for utilizing a free conversion tool from Font Squirrel  to convert and alter fonts that they embedded on websites. The suit was for 3.5 million. Part of a suit value is the cost of the license x the number of downloads. Imagine being a million dollar seller and having mistakenly used an inappropriately licensed font. What if you sold 10,000 books x $200.00. That's 2 million there! Yikes! The most expensive book I ever purchased was $70 bucks for the Art of Tim Burton and that hardcover beast must have cost a fortune to print. I can't imagine a mass market book that sports a $200 profit margin. Paid  font commercial usage licenses often exclude ebooks and website usage, which sucks, and are limited to print forms only unless you contact the copyright holder (font creator) and arrange/buy other contracted usage agreements. Even then only some fonts are available via TypeKit etc. An example would be if you bought the Adobe Master Suite Collection CS6 collection prior to the cloud days, which included several fonts, and used the Adobe Garamond Pro to write a book, you could only sell it in a print format. Content of ebooks, epubs, executable games or anything that could be downloaded as part of a data stream via a web browser is a restricted use on most paid fonts. So even when we pay for fonts/images etc the licenses always has usage restrictions. A good rule of thumb regarding freebies is google the owner (not the font site) and contact them directly by visting their website. If it's free to use commercially, screen print the usage terms. Any legit font/image has a creator who has a presence somewhere and just because someone uploaded or shared a font/image doesn't mean they own the rights to it. For further reading here is a link to a novelist, best selling author of The Loving on the Edges series, who had to pay attorney fees and money for a photo used on her none commercial blog despite her thinking it was fair use. 

 http://www.sheknows.com/community/living/blogger-beware-you-can-get-sued-using-photos-you-dont-own-your-blog

 

Damn, I would have a lot more money if I would have sued facebook for illegally using my image instead of just sending them a take down notice. It was actually facebook using an image of my daughter back when they had this thing "send your friend a growing gift" They had taken an image of my daughter dressed as a fairy and put her on a mushroom and people were sending it to each other. As it was I had to threaten them with a law suit to get it taken down. 

ETA - the image had been lifted from my website, and had never been posted to facebook. 

 

A little late, but none the less facebook has a little something you agree to when you join, which is if you upload art you give them a usage license. Which is why I never upload art I want to retain the rights to.