PUBLISHING DIARY: Cover Mock Up! Okay, so here’s the honest confession – I’m not a visual artist, duh. However, over time I’ve developed a few skills with some visual editing programs (and I’ve had some great tutors – Kat Miller for one and Gen Whitmore for another). Watching them draw and use their programs, you pick up quite a bit. Now, they have skills and backgrounds I can’t match, but I can use some of their techniques to put together something like this…
Now, this looks super cool, for sure, but let me decompose it a little. First, we’re dealing with four source images here. One is a hand-painted star field background, courtesy of Genesis Whitmore – it was used as the background of “Incarnation.” Second, third, and fourth, we have images from Kat Miller of Vanarra, Sahnassa, and a character we’ll leave nameless for the moment.
Okay, so in visual editing programs, you have this concept called “layering.” Each of these images ends up on a layer. Now, using delete tools available in the program, I can “fade out” the space between the characters. I can resize, flip, or realign them as needed. I can selectively pull layers from other art to create the ghostly image behind the two main characters. “Fine,” you might say, “but that’s no star field behind them, and it doesn’t look anything like the cover of Incarnation.”
Well, you would be right … and wrong. First, the star field was color shifted to bring out different hues (more an orangey-gold, overall). Then, a “smudge” tool was used (a big one) to streak those colors into what appear to be flows of energy coming out from the center. The smudge erases the specific lines of the original piece while preserving the color harmonies that were there. Now, those harmonies havew been shifted up a key into a different color range, but you get the picture.
I’ve sent the full cover prototype to one of my artist friends for her review and input. That’s probably going to do it for me today on Conversion, but I might be posting an inspiration later!
Have a safe and wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
JTL