Stock Art

Rant #3...
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In a recent post I referred to the "tyranny of stock images." By this I meant what I sometimes perceive as an overdependence on found imagery. I wince every time I hear someone say, "I couldn't really get the cover I wanted because I couldn't find the right images on line."

This underscores one of a couple of problems with using stock photos or stock art. The first, of course, is that it is not always possible to find something that fits your book to a T. The second problem is that, being stock art and open for use by anyone, your cover art might be appearing on fifty other books at the same time.

But there is a difficulty many cover designers might have with abandoning the use of stock imagery entirely. If they have little or no experience in art---in drawing or painting, either digitally or in traditional media---they would have a hard time creating a cover illustration from scratch. So they find themselves seemingly stuck with having to make do with what they can find, compromising the best they can.

There is a question that I have asked several times lately in other discussion threads: Why depend on found images? Why not create your own? If you have a camera---and anyone with a new cell phone already has a camera perfectly capable of taking images of more than good enough quality for a book cover---why give up if you cannot find the right image on line? Why not take your own photos and work from them? Then you will not only get exactly what you want, you will have something unique to your book.

A camera, some willing friends or relatives, a few props, an appropriate setting and you are good to go. Depending on one's skill in photo manipulation and rendering, these images can be used either more or less as is or developed into something elaborate, depending on one's needs and abilities.

(Willing family members can be a gold mine. My wife and daughter appear in 14 of the samples in the link I give below!)

Almost every medium to large town or city has a community theater. There is a very active one here where I live, and my town has only 4000 inhabitants. Even if you do not have a local community theater, there will almost surely be a high school or college with a dramatics department. These can be invaluable resources for costumes and props...and even willing volunteers for your models. The local community theater here has an entire floor of a building devoted to housing literally thousands of different costumes from every imaginable historical epoch, to say nothing of props of every description.

Of course, a story with a contemporary setting makes matters like costuming easy.

While many of the 200+ covers I have created have been drawn or painted by hand, either digitally or in traditional media---or sometimes a combination of both---a very large number have employed my own photographs directly (as opposed to using them as indirect reference). This isn't to say that I have never employed a stock image, but these are usually relegated to backgrounds or other details...and are almost always obtained from sources such as the Library of Congress and other government image archives. I also have an 8-foot-tall bookcase filled with vintage books containing hundreds of public domain images, mostly of historic interest.

I have put together a representative collection of covers that have depended to a greater or lesser degree on my own photography.

black-cat-studios.com/photocovers/index.html

I have added a few notes to some images to explain what I did (though there wasn't room to go into great detail*) and in a few instances have included some of the original photos I worked with.

One of the secrets to making all of this work properly is to be careful about lighting. It should be consistent throughout. In the sample of the girl with the sword in the arched chamber (first image, fifth row), I took great pains to make sure she appeared to share the same lighting as the background. You can compare the final result with the original image next to it. Light sources should be lighting objects from the same direction and cast shadows are all important. For instance, the shadow beneath the space heroine facing the multi-legged creature (middle image, ninth row) was painted in by hand. However many elements make up the final art, they should all ultimately look like they belong in the same picture. An image that looks pasted on is a death warrant for your illustration.

Over the years I have accumulated a vast archive of thousands of photos that I can draw upon when needed. I won't take, for instance, just one photo of someone for a cover but will instead take a dozen or more. When I travel, or even just go on a walk, I will take photos of everything: textures, machinery, vintage cars, buildings, animals, rocks, trees and plants...anything at all that might remotely look useful someday. All of these are in files subdivided into themes and topics. For instance, the backgrounds in "The Yoke of Shen" and the "Velda" covers were taken from, in the first example, a trip to California, and in the second a back alley in town.

You don't necessarily have to do an entire cover in original photography. Perhaps all you need to do is swap out a figure, or add a figure to a scene where there is none, or even change a face, gesture or other detail. Does the figure in the stock image need to be making a fist instead of holding out an open hand? Well, just ask someone to make a fist for you, take a photo of it and plug it in.

A custom-made photographic cover doesn't have to be elaborate at all. "Ars Poetica" is about an alcoholic poet. The cover required nothing more elaborate than a print-out of one of the poems (in a pseudo-handwriting typeface) and a glass filled with weak tea. This was spilled (carefully!) onto the paper and the whole set-up photographed. Voila!

The cover for "Dracula" took nothing more than my daughter, two band aids and a little color manipulation. "None So Blind" was even easier. I needed a nice-looking eye and my daughter had one. No need to go hunting on line when you might have just what you need right at hand.

So, the next time you feel stuck not finding the right stock image for your cover, think outside the box! Grab the cell phone that is probably lying next to your computer and try your hand at creating your own custom imagery! First of all, it's a lot of fun. Secondly, you wind up with something much closer to what you really have in mind and, thirdly, you have something unique that won't be appearing on ten thousand other book covers. Oh, yeah, and there are no stock image fees to pay.


*I will of course be glad to answer any questions anyone might have about these samples.

Thanks!

Here is a really good example of why one should avoid stock art like the plague...

In the Scribophile "Cover Design Studio" forum a week or two ago, someone posted a cover for their new book. They were absolutely tickled with it. But take a look at what a few second's searching turned up. The book cover the author was so pleased with is on the left...
 

 Ron has been very helpful to many people over the years and I for one am very grateful to him

Just to (probably needlessly) hammer home the point, here are three covers I did last Fall...
As usual, all three used photos of friends. I might conceivably have found what I needed online, or at least something close...but this way I got exactly what I wanted with A. no danger of having the figures show up on eleventy-seven other covers and B. with no costs or fees.

Just on a technical note, with the exception of the middle cover, the final figures are actually composites of two or three photos. For instance, in the right-hand cover I used one photo of my friend for the head and body and another for his fist. All of the background textures are from scans of circuitry diagrams, most of them from old books and magazines in my collection. The rest was basically just having a good time with Photoshop's layers.

Startlingly beautiful, Ron. The Infoquake and Multireal covers.

Beautiful work, and for those with the innate ability to do the same I do believe the "bits and pieces" will help them learn to create covers that are truly originals.