Cover art book 1
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For a Cover Art I prefer Scenes. It is because they are easy to understand and often is a very unified image. They are also closely resembling traditional artworks which is to my liking. The problem I had with this though is that many are overdone confusing mess, or halfhearted in boring, awkward or ugly picture.
I’m not so into Montages. One reason is that montages seem to be very inconsistent from cover to cover or too similar from cover to cover and I don’t like both cases. The first case makes the books seem unrelated, and the other is just plain lazy. Another reason is that they often seem slapdash. They often resemble some children poster project than professional cover art. Of course there are beautiful ones but my experience says that this is rare.
Figures. Another one that is easy to understand that has close tie to traditional artwork. This one has strong impact too becuase we are easily drawn to figures and faces. I think this one is the safest choice for cover art. But then this requires an artist that is really good at figures. I have seen book covers with figures that are unappealing, awkward, weak or stiff. There is also the “uncanny valley” that may 3D figures suffer from.
Symbol/Abstract. I’m really against this. First, this doesn’t reflect the rather fantasy medieval vibe and humour of the book. Second, unless your a wellknown author, such cover often isn’t really eye catching enough. I have seen this kind of covers and they tell almost nothing about the book to me. I had to really puzzle out the title, read the back, and read samples and other tedious stuff. I often judge these kind of covers on title. If the title doesn’t seem interesting… well…
It’s a soft brown leather cover no real symbols. See post somewhere in the forums where Rosver and I are going into all sorts of detail and posted pictures of what we were talking about.
T-A-G did think about doing a cover that sort of looked like a soft leather book cover with an embossed (painting effect) strap across the front…
If the book they are fighting over had a distinctive symbol on it like the neverending stories double ouroboros then you could use that.
I don’t recall anything like that being mentioned about the book though.
Scenes are generally my gut choice.
I’m a sucker for a Darrell K Sweet cover any day. I can spot them a mile away and am drawn like a butterfly.
Same for Michael Whelan
unfortunately such big name artists only work with publishers and are incredibly expensive….but that’s my favorite sort of cover.
I suggested just a pentagram. Or Horns.
And then a halo for book ii perhaps
However, T-A-G does not seem to be taking my calls.
The big themes I saw:
– Slavery
– Evil is as evil does; not by virtue of being
– Human vs. Demon
– Is Tom becoming evil because he has turned into a demon?Symbols…
Chains, marionette?Don’t know about unifying themes from book 2 or book 3 or book 4. Would need a synopsis.
Maybe each cover should show the central conflict from each book? Not always a scene mind you. A central conflict in Into the Abyss is truth vs. belief.
It varies depending on the genre & themes of the story. For Into the Abyss… I’d say stronger on the symbology since that is so important to the story. I don’t think that there are that many scenes on that would help to capture the essence of the story.
If you do a character, it’d pretty much have to feature Tom, but what would Tom be doing that helps to summarize the whole theme of the book? I can’t think of anything.
General question on Cover Art:
Do you prefer Scenes, Montages, Single figure (or multiple figure with not much background), Symbol/Abstract?
Some of this has been answered by some but particularly on the scene/montage/character(s) thing I am curious.
[quote=The Author Guy;1725]General question on Cover Art:
Do you prefer Scenes, Montages, Single figure (or multiple figure with not much background), Symbol/Abstract?
Some of this has been answered by some but particularly on the scene/montage/character(s) thing I am curious.
[/quote]In my opinion it’s not about preference. Here’s my two cents on the topic (I’ve been giving it a bit of thought for a while now)
First, as was said earlier in the topic people judge a book by the cover. The cover itself can say a lot about the book. For example a professional looking cover gives the impression of a well-written book. There are tons of books on amazon which have some abstract twirly symbol for a cover image generally saying to the customers “this is an indie book, don’t expect much from it”. There are also tons of books with stock photos for a cover. When used unmodified the stock photo can easily confuse the customer into thinking they already viewed the book. Now, if the cover is done by a pro artist, it shows. The real question is “what does it show?” Here’s an example: I’ve seen a few covers with a female on the front. You’d think a book like that would have a female protagonist, you click on it to take a closer look, and you find out the book either has some female antagonist or a female side character.
People don’t just judge a book by its cover, people read the themes in the book by the cover. You know the book is comedic in nature if the art is cartooney, you know it’s about magic if there’s some mysterious-looking light on the cover, you know the book contains romantic themes when you see a male hugging a female on the cover. And if you like what you see, you take a closer look at the book. In case of Demons of Astlan series, you might want to go for a somewhat cartoonish art or showing characters performing things incongruent with what is usually expected from them (a ganja-smoking stoned demon is one such example), as this is a portal fantasy some magic fantasy land in the background would demonstrate that the action is happening in a different world. And, of course placing the main character in the foreground would show who the main character is (or you could place some secondary characters in the background to demonstrate who else the book is about). Since the main character is a human-turned-demon this could be shown with a partial transformation – e.g. a demon hand, a demon’s eye or a face half of which is demonic, while the other half is human (think Batman’s Two-Face or the way they did the posters for Face-Off).
And so there you are: a picture that’s worth a thousand words 🙂
According to the ever whiny T-A-G that has been a subject of great consternation.
In part because it has to be representative, and enticing, but not give too much away. So no Tom vs Talarius for example.
Right now the thinking is the initial summoning (e.g. circle of wizards w/Tom in the middle)
However suggestions are welcome.
In terms of the traveling together, thoughts have included the battle on the ship; the campfire when Maelen discovers they are being followed by the Rod.
He’s thought of The Ripe Young Maiden’s Surprise, need to optimize the time with the most characters are there…usually it’s two or three at a time.
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