AQATWA: Cover Reveal
Mar. 10th, 2019 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inverarityI have three betas for AQATWA. One is about a third of the way through the book, one is on chapter five, and one is still in the process of rereading the first four books. So work is proceeding — I have made a number of changes already, but they are mostly on the word-and-sentence level. They haven't yet hit any of the Big Honkin' Plot Points that I expect will generate the most discussion, and of course, if there are inconsistencies or major plot holes, some may not be apparent until they've gotten to the end of the book.
AQATWA remains a big book. My manuscript... has not gotten smaller. One beta has already commented on the multiple subplots, and made some suggestions for scenes that could be cut. We'll see, because it depends on how necessary/unnecessary they still think those scenes are once they've reached the end of the book.
Anyway, it's time to reveal... the cover. Well, at least a prototype for the cover.
No wait, let me tease you first and talk about terrible covers. Mainly, mine.
Embarrassingly, for all the time I have spent faffing around with Poser and Photoshop, I have spent quite a lot of time figuring out how to do some highly specific and obscure task, like warping text or creating fire effects, and very little time studying the basics of composition and color theory. I kind of knew what a color wheel was, but never actually paid attention to how they are applied.
Which why I created abominations like my first cover.
Aside from the crappy Photoshop job (don't ask me why I couldn't be bothered to even fix that white artifact on Alexandra's pants leg), whatever possessed me to use yellow font on a green background? Yeah, seriously, I had no idea about contrast, triadic color schemes, etc.
I didn't do much better with the next few books.
So anyway, although I have commissioned quite a few pieces of art for AQATWA, I'm back at the Poser hacking, and I renewed my subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, so maybe now I will actually try to learn something about color schemes, blending, layers, all that good stuff. But the fact remains, as a digital artist, I'm a pretty fair writer.
So, below the cut is the cover image I commissioned from Katerina Ventova. The art is her work, but the title and author text is mine. I think I chose an appropriately contrasting color this time, and the font size and positioning looks okay to me, but I have a terrible eye for these details, so if there are any typographic designers out there, please speak up and tell me what I can do to make it look better.
This is never going to be a commercial release, of course, but I'd like to at least get my covers a bit more polished.
Leventart, by the way, did a beautiful job, I think, so feel free to click to her DeviantArt page and give her some love. (Or commission her!)
Commission: Alexandra Quick by Leventart on DeviantArt
AQATWA remains a big book. My manuscript... has not gotten smaller. One beta has already commented on the multiple subplots, and made some suggestions for scenes that could be cut. We'll see, because it depends on how necessary/unnecessary they still think those scenes are once they've reached the end of the book.
Anyway, it's time to reveal... the cover. Well, at least a prototype for the cover.
No wait, let me tease you first and talk about terrible covers. Mainly, mine.
Embarrassingly, for all the time I have spent faffing around with Poser and Photoshop, I have spent quite a lot of time figuring out how to do some highly specific and obscure task, like warping text or creating fire effects, and very little time studying the basics of composition and color theory. I kind of knew what a color wheel was, but never actually paid attention to how they are applied.
Which why I created abominations like my first cover.
Aside from the crappy Photoshop job (don't ask me why I couldn't be bothered to even fix that white artifact on Alexandra's pants leg), whatever possessed me to use yellow font on a green background? Yeah, seriously, I had no idea about contrast, triadic color schemes, etc.
I didn't do much better with the next few books.
So anyway, although I have commissioned quite a few pieces of art for AQATWA, I'm back at the Poser hacking, and I renewed my subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, so maybe now I will actually try to learn something about color schemes, blending, layers, all that good stuff. But the fact remains, as a digital artist, I'm a pretty fair writer.
So, below the cut is the cover image I commissioned from Katerina Ventova. The art is her work, but the title and author text is mine. I think I chose an appropriately contrasting color this time, and the font size and positioning looks okay to me, but I have a terrible eye for these details, so if there are any typographic designers out there, please speak up and tell me what I can do to make it look better.
This is never going to be a commercial release, of course, but I'd like to at least get my covers a bit more polished.
Leventart, by the way, did a beautiful job, I think, so feel free to click to her DeviantArt page and give her some love. (Or commission her!)
Commission: Alexandra Quick by Leventart on DeviantArt
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2019-03-11 06:50 am (UTC)Interesting effect that's surrounding her. And she's holding her right hand as though brandishing a wand but it isn't holding anything. I can't tell whether the Glowing Green eyes are a result of her casting a spell or getting one cast upon her either, the screaming aggressive pose she's adopted could go either way.
Keep going
Date: 2019-03-11 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-18 01:04 pm (UTC)I'm getting a little nervous for what incredible trials poor Alexandra will go through in this next book. Darker indeed as the series progresses.