“Desire” by P. T. Michelle

Tags

composition, Cover Art, Cover design, Desire, golden ratio, Keith Draws, P.T. Michelle, Photo compositiing, Photoshop, Vampire

Patrice had a very specific vision for this cover.

She gave me the stock shot of the Main Character and together we decided I would paint everything else (including the wings).

Realism is always a challenge but I feel it was a great success, combining the best elements of both media.

Her  blog is here and her facebook is here

“Swords of the Damned” by Richard Tongue

Tags

book cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, design, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, kindle, Kobo, layout, Photoshop, The Rule of Thirds, typography

I’ve been working with Richard for quite some time and he usually gives me quite a free hand with what I do, but not this time.

Getting a brief like this can be quite intimidating:

Swords of the Damned cover art © Keith Draws

“The setting is a dank and dismal dungeon, illuminated by strange luminescent mold on the walls, not bright but bright enough to illuminate our heroes – the dungeon itself is an ancient tomb, strange symbols and markings carved into the cracking marble. Two heroes are engaged in battle,one of them a rougish-type fighter wearing leather armour, carrying a sword, the other a raven-haired sorceress wearing a long, flowing robe – the colour of which I leave to you, whatever you think looks best, preferably with some strange and arcane symbols on it, and her hand is raised, crackling with eldritch blue light. They are fighting some nasty skeletons – think the Harryhousen type from ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ – armed with shields and swords. There are some ‘dead’ skeletons on the ground, and some sort of horrible creature up above about to catch them by surprise.”

There is a lot going on and a lot of characters appearing in the image so how to go about bringing it to life in a way that will sell the book?

Well, the image needs to draw the viewer into the scene so a view into the temple with perceptive to draw the viewer in and lighting to create a focal point seemed like a good start.

First off I laid in a Golden Ratio 9 section Grid as a template which I would use to help balance the image.

Next, the background/temple was laid in making sure there would be enough air for the title and Author in the top “third” of the grid.

Now onto the characters. I decided to place these in layers from back to front in order to help enhance the depth. I sketched in the rough positions.

Starting with the giant octopus creature in the background, making it dark and almost unseen.

Next came Sorceress, I placed her to the right of the center section of the grid she’s kind of hovering in a dramatic almost Christlike pose, bathed in light, casting a spell. I placed a bright surge of magic power behind her that is reflected in the floor and this serves almost like vertical arrow drawing the eye up from the base right to her.

Next, I painted the green smoke surging off to the sides which also serve to lead the eye in but this time from the sides.

The next depth layer is the three skeletons were placed in the mid-distance, heads just below the centerline and slightly to the right of center. I painted then quite dark with stark highlights so they stand out well and at the same time look quite eerie.

Now comes the second hero, dodging a blow from one of the skeletons. He’s much closer to the viewer and so much bigger in the frame. I placed him below the center and in the left section of the grid. He is painted in heavy contrast creating drama while standing out from the background. There is now also a good balance of tone and shape.

The broken skeleton in the foreground again painted in high contrast adds another layer of depth while at the same time framing the base of the image.

You’ll notice that by positioning and lighting the Sorceress and the Hero as I did I made them the “Stars” of the image.

Now the rough was completed I sent it off for approval and fortunately, Richard liked it and so I went on to work it up to what you see here.

The title, series name, and Author typography were all based on the existing Series name logo. Again it took a little thought but I was able to make it all tie together with the layout of the image.

I left this until last but in hindsight, I think it’s always better to design the typography first since it can have a great impact on the final image. In this case, I was fortunate in that I had to make few changes to the overall painting, and of course, since I work digitally this is much easier to do. Had I painted this in oil I would have had a much harder time of it.

I won’t make that mistake again.

Richard’s Blog can be found here

And his Facebook is here

Posters and prints of this painting can be purchased here

Breathtaking book cover

Just wow!

Apparently my cover for “The Island” by Teri Hall is breathtaking.

See the actual post here

Creating Gold text.

Tags

book cover, cd cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, Gold text, Keith Draws, kindle, layout, Photo compositiing, typography

This is  a simple way to make gold text in PS. The music is a bit distracting but the technique is good.

Composition: Using the Golden Ratio on your Cover

Tags

book cover, cd cover, composition, Cover Art, design, golden ratio, illustration, kindle, layout, typography

There is a lot of mystical talk about the Golden Ratio:

The Golden Ratio is also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or Divine Proportion, this law was made famous by Leonardo Fibonacci around 1200 A.D. He noticed that there was an absolute ratio that appears often throughout nature, a sort of design that is universally efficient in living things and pleasing to the human eye. Hence, the “divine proportion” nickname.

source: digital-photography-school.com

But we are not really concerned with all the mysticism and math here: We are simply concerned with how to make a good cover design. So how does it concern us? Well if you divide the imagery up on your cover using this method you end up with a very pleasing and well balanced image.

The Grid looks like this:

And If you want some evidence of just how well it works:
The cover for “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett looks like it was designed using this principle and according to USA today it was the number one selling book of 2011. Of course, that may have a little to do with the writing as well, but that cover really did grab the attention of potential readers.

A golden rectangle can be drawn out using a straightedge and a compass like this (see below):

1. Draw a square
2. Draw a line from the midpoint of one side of the square to an opposite corner
3. Use that line as the radius to draw an arc that defines the height of the rectangle
4. now you can draw the golden rectangle with the correct proportions.

You can use the grid anyway round you like, horizontally, vertically, flipped and even in multiples at angles as it is seen in the sunflower. Of course, I recommend keeping things simple, it’s less risky.

The next thing to consider is the proportions of your cover. A paperback book cover, though close, is not quite of the same proportions as the Golden Rectangle. But this doesn’t mean you can’t use it. In the diagram below the green area represents a standard Kindle book cover, and I’ve shown two possible alternative uses of the format. One is scaled down proportionally (as on the cover of “The Help”) and another is scaled vertically in order to use all the books space, this I will call a “Butchered” Golden Rectangle. It still leads to good quality composition, but it’s not quite as aesthetically pleasing.

The same thing applies to CD covers, though the square format is very different making things slightly more problematic as can be seen in the diagrams below.

If you are wondering why this particular compositional model is so appealing, well there are many theories, but nothing is confirmed. Personally, I think its got a lot to do with the subconscious human skill of detecting patterns, and the more perfect the pattern the more we like it.

That said, imperfect patterns such as a “Butchered” Golden Ratio still appeal because they do have internal consistency and a detectable pattern.

Here you can see how I’ve used the Golden Ratio on a recent book cover. I kept it in proportion matching the width of the book but allowing it to bleed just a little above and below the page. Look at the key elements of the cover. The typography; and how the focus is drawn into the word “Rebirth” The way the eye is bisected between the first square and second golden rectangle, the way the beard, nose, and brow follow the curve of the spiral. The way the front edge of the base of the ear bisects the central square, and so on. I’m sure you can spot much more.

Its also possible to use the Golden ratio in your Typography (i.e. with your fonts and text layout) not only on the cover but actually in your book and there is a great blog piece by Chris Pearson about just that right here:  http://www.pearsonified.com/2011/12/golden-ratio-typography.php

I’m going to continue to explore all the other compositional grids, methods and techniques in future posts and with a bit of luck by the end of it all we will all be better cover designers.

If you enjoyed this article and perhaps found some help in here I’d appreciate a Facebook “share” and or “like” and one in as many other social networks as you can bring yourself to click on.

And finally back to the mysticism.