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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 29, 2019 15:37:04 GMT
To be honest, I'm not great at graphics. I can craft a sword, build a desk or chest, and fabricate a lot of objects in the real world. I have an eye for terrain, which comes in handy when you need terracing to stop erosion. I can paint a house but not a picture.
An idea I had for a cover for "Regeneration: Chasing Silence" would involve an image evoking a sense of something wrong.
The bird perched on the pole is a turkey vulture.
Thoughts?
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Post by ronmiller on Dec 29, 2019 19:25:40 GMT
Well...
Not as it stands, I don't think it really evokes any real sense of something wrong anything sinister. It's just a very nice photo of a landscape under a looming sky. It needs another element to both be a focal point and to get across with some immediacy, and without ambivalence, the character you are after. If, for instance, that vulture were in the foreground and dominated the cover, you would be heading in the right direction.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 29, 2019 20:01:01 GMT
I did a closeup I made on the same day. Any closer to a sense of foreboding, gloom, or not quite right?
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Post by BlueAndGold on Dec 29, 2019 23:06:42 GMT
Closer, please.  |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 30, 2019 12:10:39 GMT
I'll have to wait for another turkey vulture to assume its post outside the house to take a closer shot.
They tend to be habitual, as a large group roosts nightly on the cell tower just across the highway.
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Post by ronmiller on Dec 30, 2019 13:32:27 GMT
Much better...but, as B&G says, still too small. You don't want to have to count on a prospective reader recognizing the bird for what it is unless it is really patently obvious that it's a vulture. And for that to occur, the bird needs to be much larger. Certainly no smaller in proportion to the cover than this---  A better pose would help, too, as you suggest (or at least an image that shows more detail in the bird). ![]() |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 30, 2019 13:44:46 GMT
I really need a decent camera with a telephoto lens, which won't happen until after January 2021.
The other visual I was thinking on was a damaged passes-as-human-android confronting an armored-battle-android [Hunter-Killer] with perhaps an AI-controlled P-61 Black Widow derivative in a dive. Since I don't have the ability to do that, again it would be after January 2021.
Once the youngest turns three I might have enough time to write a bit more.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 14:39:20 GMT
Maybe a different angle, from the top or bottom, and increase contrast and lighting intensity. You can look for a similar image online. No need to wait for 2021.
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Post by BlueAndGold on Dec 30, 2019 15:07:45 GMT
Catch one or two (or more) of the big birds soaring with a gloomy cloud above.  |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 30, 2019 15:17:26 GMT
If I get lucky I can catch the flock flying low and slow over the property on their way back to roost in the evening, but that depends on der kinder and a few other factors like cooking or providing counseling.
Once Prinz Liam turns three he might have calmed down a bit, or not.
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Post by ronmiller on Dec 30, 2019 18:33:07 GMT
I really need a decent camera with a telephoto lens, which won't happen until after January 2021. The other visual I was thinking on was a damaged passes-as-human-android confronting an armored-battle-android [Hunter-Killer] with perhaps an AI-controlled P-61 Black Widow derivative in a dive. Since I don't have the ability to do that, again it would be after January 2021. Once the youngest turns three I might have enough time to write a bit more. Holy cow! Are we talking about the same book here?  |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 30, 2019 19:03:26 GMT
Ron,
"Regeneration: Chasing Silence" is the conclusion to my Regeneration series. You should have a hard copy of the zeroth in the series, "Regeneration: Prelude to War".
In the final installment it's a question of whether the pass-as-human androids can survive the forces working against them. Good guys in the form of those trying to integrate the pass-as-human androids into society versus a government basically hijacked by corrupt forces who would use the battle-version androids to put the lower classes of into their place when not replacing them.
Hence drone versions of the P-61 B.W., P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang, or F4U Corsair [take your pick] with other figures on the cover.
Or a cover with a vulture waiting on the dead, some smoke rising from a burning house in the distance.
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Post by ronmiller on Dec 30, 2019 19:43:45 GMT
I didn't make the connection!
I think that this makes the vulture-on-the-pole idea even more inappropriate. Not only does it not say a thing about the actual nature/subject/theme of your book, it doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the series. A "a vulture waiting on the dead, some smoke rising from a burning house in the distance" could just as easily be a story with an historical setting, a contemporary mystery or thriller or pretty much anything other than a novel that deals with "whether...pass-as-human androids can survive the forces working against them [with] Good guys in the form of those trying to integrate the pass-as-human androids into society versus a government basically hijacked by corrupt forces who would use the battle-version androids to put the lower classes of into their place when not replacing them."
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 30, 2019 20:05:42 GMT
Ron,
I understand the confusing aspect, as operating in Bedlam Central when der kinder are awake [some days they remind me of rabid squirrels on steroids going nonstop till they drop] I don't always give sufficient detail. Occupational hazard of having a family late in life.
Hopefully "Regeneration: Prelude to War" didn't stink like a corpse flower. 'Chasing Silence' is longer, but no time where I can focus on polish and so on, yet.
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