Magic Fox is my covermaking mascot. He and I have been making covers and manips for over 6 years (at the point of 2020). "Modern Fox" is the name of our brand.
INCLUDES: Book Cover Art, Contest Entries, Chapter Markers, Scenic Manips, Aesthetics, Ad...
So, I did this before, and I'm doin' it again. I'm making someone a cover even though they didn't order from me.
I'm also making this a post where I show you my thought process. How do I tackle complicated cover requests? So, I found this challenging-sounding multiple layered re-qui...reqwest in the MDC forum...so I tried it.
This was the r-weqwest (I cannot say this word today) that I saw:
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Title: The Pirate Kings
Subtitle: From "The Chronicles Of The After-World"
Author: A. Morningstar
Genre: science-fiction
Ideas: This is how I see the cover: a brown girl with long brown curly hair is standing on a beach, from behind. On the background there's a city with high buildings, very futuristic. On the beach, where the girl is standing, behind her there's a rock with a pirate flag implanted in it. The flag is red and gold with a skull.
Inspo: this is how i see the skull designed on the flag, only with red and gold colors
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(the inspo pic was of a tattoo skull with flowers and butterflies around it, if you must know)
===HOW I TACKLE COMPLICATED REQUESTS===
STEP ONE: GATHER ITEMS
Okay, at first it sounds like a lot. So many particular things needed. A lot of cover artists get scared away when there are so many things the author wants. I do, too.
But it's not so scary. Okay? Let's break it down. Brown girl with long brown curly hair facing away (from behind means we are looking at her back). CHECK.
Beach? What kind of beach? Happy beach? Gloomy beach? Can't be any beach. I went to the book and this is a sci-fi dystopian book. Must be dark. CHECK.
Futuristic as heck city. Skyline would work. CHECK.
Rock with flag. Eh, couldn't find and couldn't do. Some things just are not possible for me. So, well, heck, I'll just make my own flag and stick it somewhere. Realistic-looking flag? CHECK. Can't have a fake flag on real scenery. Just doesn't work.
Skull with flowers and butterflies? CHECK. That was easy.
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STEP TWO: PUT THEM TOGETHER
We can deal with unifying the colors later. Let's put them all together! (Rosanna Pansino reference)
The red and gold flag thing...you know, when I made it and stuffed it on the cover, threw on a title and other text I was like "Nah, looking SO CLUNKY! How am I going to make this work??? I need unification!"
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STEP THREE: UNIFICATION
Unification, let me tell ya, doesn't just mean unifying things and making them look like one. It also means establishing accent colors. So, I chose to make red and gold text to match with the flag and just make those two colors the accent colors.
Then, the rest of the cover shrouds in dark blues, grays, and some pale-ish ocean-storm-dystopian-sci-fi colors.
Because, as you might know, the genre should show on the cover at least somewhat while still answering to the author's request. That's always a tricky balance.
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STEP FOUR: MESS AROUND WITH EVERYTHING
I probably messed with the gradation of the font for a good thirty minutes.
Then it was just a matter of moving things around and fixing the sizing so that it looks like the girl is there. You know what I mean?
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RESULTS
Praise myself. I think it came out looking pretty cool DESPITE the fact that I had not done a good old manipulated cover in a couple months. At least, not for other people. What do you guys think?
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If Athevnas wants this cover, they should either comment here =>>>
