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Stock Art
Jan 9, 2020 14:49:15 GMT
via mobile
Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 14:49:15 GMT
Particularly the David Louis series. Out of this world.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 16:05:21 GMT
Good idea Ron, I'm sure it will be very useful.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 16:47:11 GMT
I think it would be extremely useful, Ron. I look forward to seeing the technique. Okey doke! I will see what covers I have for which I may still have some of the separate pieces for, or covers that are simple enough to easily explain. (Sometimes I will use traditional media, so I will skip most of those.) I think that my main point will always be to try to think out of the box. As probably everyone already knows (all too well), I am very much against the tendency to A. head straight for a stock image source and B. give up or settle for "close enough" if one can't find exactly what one needs ready-made. I am very much in favor of encouraging originality and imagination. I would also strongly encourage people to take a course in art or drawing at a local community college or equivalent. This won't make anyone an artist, but it will help develop basic skills, as well as providing training in composition, color and simply learning how to observe.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 18:48:21 GMT
Since the blog allows for only three attachments at a time, I will start with just three... The first one was pretty easy! Sometimes a cover can be pretty effective without any imagery at all. In fact, there is not even any color. This was an anthology of stories about clones...so what I came up with seemed like a natural---as well as being a little tongue-in-cheek. I may try to talk a little more later about all-typographic covers. Ars Poetica was really simple, too. The book is about an alcoholic poet, so I printed out one of the poems in a script typeface, spilled a glass of whisky (tea, really---I am not going to waste good whiskey on a book cover) on it and took a photo. The rest was just making sure that the typography was interesting. A similar approach was taken with Players. A local antique store had a nice briefcase that they kindly let me take a snapshot of. Some hand-painted bullet holes and pool of blood and the art was done. I will try to not post any covers that required a lot of hand-rendering but this was simple enough that I didn't think it would be too daunting. However, even this is the sort of thing that could be made much easier by taking a class in drawing. In all three cases the fundamental goal was to try to convey a single idea about the book's subject or theme.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 19:11:46 GMT
On the left is the original sketch, on the right the finished cover. The hands are mine and my wife's, the background from a photo in my files. The knife is a photo of a real bone with the blade largely painted in by hand (it could just as easily, I imagine, been a cardboard cutout). The bone knife was inserted later with the shadows on the hand then added (since I wanted to make the bone a little larger than it was in reality), but it could have been done as one shot. Some fiddly little wisps of vapor and sparkles were added via Photoshop.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 20:04:02 GMT
Another three using photos either taken specifically for the project or existing photos taken from my files. All three were done as exercises, largely for the fun and the chance to experiment. Les Miserables required only a replica pistol borrowed from a friend (actually, I think it was from the prop room of our local little theater) and a loaf of bread. Both were photographed separately and combined later, with the shadows added by hand. The background is an 18th century map of France, but is there as much for the texture as anything else. Of the three covers, this is the only one that required any drawing or painting by hand (the shadows). Dracula is a photo of my daughter. All I needed to do was adjust the color and add a couple of bandaids. The Darker Sex was based on a photo of a friend. I made a greyscale image of the original color photo, adjusted the contrast and added the moon. The trees in the upper background were taken from another photo. I think this might also be a good example of how minimal color might be used effectively. I think I may eventually post a few examples of covers that are largely or entirely B&W.
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 20:44:31 GMT
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 21:12:24 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 21:59:54 GMT
Brilliant. Thank you.
The Sparkles effect is preset in your Photoshop or you created it using their tools?
I had no image for a cover I did recently. I used whatever I could find, altered it significantly. It was actually inspired by by the Silverstein black and white cover I posted last time to show BlueandGod. Still not sure how to paste photos here.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 22:10:03 GMT
The title is small because it's Casewrap and I was restricted to the space before the blue bars in the template.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 22:11:46 GMT
I would enjoy receiving your feedback on it, Ron. The publisher name and designer is on bottom right, back cover. Let me see if I can upload a bigger version.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 22:16:49 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 22:19:34 GMT
Not sure why it appears so small. The actual file is large.
I took a photograph I found online and rendered it unrecognizable using Threshold. When you have a minute, what could have been done better taking into account the audience and market for this type of book?
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Post by ronmiller on Jan 9, 2020 22:27:43 GMT
Brilliant. Thank you. The Sparkles effect is preset in your Photoshop or you created it using their tools? I had no image for a cover I did recently. I used whatever I could find, altered it significantly. It was actually inspired by by the Silverstein black and white cover I posted last time to show BlueandGod. Still not sure how to paste photos here. No...I made my own sparkles. I just saw your new cover! I will have to wait until tomorrow to look at it closely...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2020 23:17:10 GMT
Really? That's a good skill. I await your suggestions for improvement tomorrow. Goodnight.
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