The Idiot's Guide to Writing Anime Fanfics

Tip 2: Making that BEAST Cover

Yo guys, So a lot of you have been asking me how I make my covers, so I decided to do a chapter on here. For those of you who inboxed me to ask, I commend you, good job. This is just going to be a very in-depth explanation on how I personally make my covers.（〜^∇^)〜

I also took pictures to go along with the numbers for the tutorial, hopefully they work, please look at them since I actually put effort into making them.

Anyway, On with the tutorial!〈( ^.^)ノ

Making You Cover on the iPad

I do everything concerning wattpad on my ipad, which includes writing and making the covers because i'm too lazy to walk over to my computer and turn it on (一。一;) So this is a step-by-step guide for all you iPad users out there.

(Bold numbers correspond with picture on the side)

1.) The two apps I use for the covers are PopA Graph and Pic Collage. Both are free which is why I love them. FREE STUFF FTW Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

Anyway, I first browse vaious sites for the perfect picture.

Sites I use include: Zerochan, Pintrest, Tumblr, Devianart, And just plain old Google Images.

When I find a picture I like I can either do two things:

-Slap my title on to it and say done (Ex. This book's cover)

-Add some more pics and make it my own cover. (Ex. My cover for my book "All of you are INSANE" )

Since I'm an artsy person I enjoying doing the second choice, which is where the two apps I mentioned before come into play.

2.) So I go onto PopAGraph first and highlight the part of the picture I want. (You can do it messily). I press the lift button and usually the app will refine what you selected. (You can go back and individually highlight anything it misses, but it's pretty good at highlighting).

3). Then I go to "Filters" and mess around with the background or the highlighted part of the picture. I set the highlighted part to vivid most of the time to bring it out, and I chose to remove the background.

4.) To remove the background, I go to "Frames" and select the square frame. I drag one side all the way to the other side until it "Disappears".

5.) Then I go to "Effects" and select clear. This gets rid of the background completely.

6.) I save this image in my library. Then repeat, doing this for all the pictures I want to use. After, I go to the next app: Pic Collage.

7.) In Pic Collage I press the cross at the button and add my photos.

8.) Then I add a background, stickers and text for my title.

9.) I save the finished image in my library and open a new collage. Then add the entire picture in.

10.) Finally I set the background to a different color and scale the picture, so that it looks like it has a border. After I'm satisfied, I save it and directly add to Wattpad using the wattpad app.

Piece of cake (＃'ー')旦

You can get really complicated with these simple tools and make some beautiful covers. For both my covers, "All of You are INSANE." And "My High School Hell" I actually got inspiration from Manga covers I saw online. I saw a manga cover design I liked and basically imitated it the best I could with different pictures I found using those two apps.

In addition, Pic collage and PopAGraph have a variety of text choices, so if you have a perfect photo and just want to slap your title on it, you can use these tools to do it.

There are also many websites you can use to make covers, but I find computer programs somewhat difficult to manipulate images, and less convenient if you're always on the iPad like me. So this is just a suggestion for all you guys. Hope it helped! And I hope to see many beautiful covers in the future.〜(￣▽￣〜)

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Vote and don't forget to Comment below on what you guys want next. (⌒▽⌒)☆

Or leave a suggestion on how you make your own covers :D

Thanks for reading!