Latest Cover Design—Dear Tiger: Omnibus

Since the plan is to release an omnibus collecting all six stories in the series, I decided to design the omnibus cover as soon as the cover of the sixth book was finalised. All images were sourced from artists and photographers on Dreamstime.

I started out with the template I’d used to create the covers for the books in the series, and then added in the Roberto Pirola planetary background I was using to link the series together. I thought about using FengYu’s photograph of the letter I used for the first book, and added that in, as well.

Since the monster eyes by Plus69 were a major feature of two covers, and represented the main character, I chose to include them on the omnibus cover, as well. I also wanted to include Junichi Shimazaki’s spaceship, as there is a lot of space travel in the series. And, finally, I wanted the Ruins (sourced from Vincent St Thomas), because ruins are featured throughout the series.

As you can see, that meant the cover image was too crowded, so I had to remove one of the elements. I ended up taking out Feng Yu’s pictureof stationery as letters quickly become emails in the stories. This meant I needed to re-position Junichi’s space ship, before adding in the eyes that represent the other changeling characters in the story. The eyes were given new angles by using the Rotate Tool in the Toolbox.

First each pair of eyes had to be positioned, and then the layers linked by clicking on the chain icon beside each. Once linked, the eyes, the Rotate Tool was selected, and the eyes pivoted to their new position. These icons had to be unclicked before the next pair of eyes could be positioned, as everything with a chain link that had been clicked turned when the Rotate Tool was used.

The eyes I used were sourced from Hanna Darzy's Thai Cat, Plus69's Monster Eyes, and Panaceadoll's sets of eyes.

The final cover looked like this:

Latest Cover Design—Dear Tiger: Help Me Find My Sisters

The final cover in a series can sometimes be the hardest, or the easiest of them all. I’m still not sure about this one.

To start with, I wanted to link the ruins in the story to cover, so I used the cover from the fifth book as my template. I then removed the Junichi’s most excellent spaceship, and set about isolating each eye in aset of eyes sourced from Panaceadoll at Dreamstime.

I also wanted to link the cover in with Book 3, I Like Your Lab, so I used the eyes I’d already isolated from the monstereyes sourced from Plus69 at Dreamstime. Lastly, I isolated the wonderful, blue eyes from the thai cat photographed by Hanna Darzy, also at Dreamstime. I imported each of these as layers and arranged them on the cover.

Finally, I realised I had to add the short story warning to the base of the cover just above the author by-line, and then I needed to use the Brightness-Contrast option under the Colors tab in order to make the white lettering more visible over the eye by reducing the brightness of each eye layer by -8, and increasing the contrast of each eye layer by +13.

This is the final cover:

Latest Cover Design—Dear Tiger: Let’s Go A-Hunting

Compared to Blaedergil’s Host, the cover design for this addition to the on-going Dear Tiger series was simple:

Take your template, and make sure you change the title and the number of the book in the series. Now, add your Dreamstime-sourced, base image of planets by Roberto Pirola, linking the series together.

Find a lovely picture of the Ruins of Ta Prohm by VincentSt. Thomas at Dreamstime, and resize it, using the Move tool in the Toolbox sidebar to choose what portion to show on your cover. Highlight the layer featuring the ruins in the layer’s sidebar, and reduce the opacity to 45% using the slidebar at the top.

Add in the spaceship image you sourced from Junichi Shimazakion Dreamstime, and which you have already isolated from its background. Flip the spaceship image and move it to where you want it on your cover using the Move tool, and then highlight the background layer in the Layers sidebar, select the Image tab, and select Autocrop Image from the drop down menu to trim all the layers hanging off the edges of your cover.

The final image for this cover turned out as follows:

Latest Cover Design: Dear Tiger: I Like Your Lab

This is the second cover I worked on in February. It belongs to the same series as Dear Tiger: Don’t Look Back. Cover creation was a little simpler from the perspective of deciding on a background and lettering, but composition took a little decision.

To start with, I followed the same steps as I did last week, using a black background and importing the background art by Roberto Pirola at Dreamstime, as well as creating the title using white letters in Segoe Print Bold, and the byline using white letters in Tiger Rag LET.

After that, I had to decide on what I wanted to add, and, this time, I decided it was eyes. It took me a while to work my way through the Dreamstime stock images, before I decided to purchase a lovely set of beasteyes by Plus69. The only problem I had was that the image was a long, narrow band, and not at all book cover shaped, so I knew I would have to isolate the eyes and position them closer together to get them to fit on the page.

As I worked in GIMP, I discovered I couldn’t isolate both eyes in the same image. That is, I couldn’t cut around one eye, and then isolate and cut out the other, so that they were on different layers, with the background on a third. This meant I had to save the image twice under different names (left eye, and right eye, worked fine), and go through the process of shrinking the image so that no one side was longer than 525 px, before cutting out one eye, returning it to the image as a separate layer, and then making the background disappear, and returning the image to its original dimensions and saving it again.

Once I had the eyes, I opened them as layers in the cover document, and then used the move tool to position them, and the erase tool to finalise the shape, and to blur the hard edges of the isolation. I also adjusted the opacity of the eye images to that the planet background could be partially seen through them.

The final step was to use the ‘Brighten-Contrast’ button on the ‘Colors’ tab drop-down to give things a bit more definition and darken up the background so that the white lettering was easier to read.

And this cover was complete - again with many thinks to GIMP, and the artists at Dreamstime.

New Cover: Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Any More

The fourth, and final, cover completed last week was for Dear Tiger: I Don’t Think I’m Human Anymore, the second book in Carlie Simonsen’s The Tiger Letters series.

As mentioned before, I followed the common planets’ theme, using artwork by Roberto Pirola, and the emphasised a story element using photography by Stefano90, both sourced from Dreamstime.

The process was similar to those before, and I used GIMP to isolate elements in the chemistry photograph, and bring them closer together, and also to alter the opacity of the planetary art work.

The final cover is as follows:

Trapped in a room, and unable to hug her family, Simone knows she is changing. She just doesn’t know what she’s changing into, or how long it will take. The company doctors won’t tell her, and Tiger seems so far away. But at least he writes back, and he’s trying to help. Maybe, together, they can find a way out.

New Cover: Granny Finds a Gas Mask

The third cover completed this week was designed for the first chapter book in the Granny Finds Adventure series, by Carlie Simonsen. In this case, the item Granny found was a gas mask. This was a little tricky to do, but I opted for simple, using a common background, or background idea, with a single item to differentiate it.

The item for this book was the gas mask, for which I found a close approximation in a photo of a gas mask by Exopixel on Dreamstime. The background is from one of my own pictures of some Australian parkland, suitably cropped and darkened. Both gas mask and park land were manipulated by GIMP, and the cover was created by the same program.

Again, I started with a template base, and then layered in the elements I wanted. The process looked a little like this.

The final product looks like this.

Helping Gran is a chore, but with her holding their mobile phones hostage, Gareth and Giselle have no choice. Unpacking boxes of books is no surprise. Unpacking the gas mask is—and so is finding themselves back in the war, in Gran’s war, because ‘some things are meant to be changed’. How on Earth, does Gran expect them to help with this? Better yet, how on Earth, can they get back home?

Granny Finds a Gas Mask is the first book in a series where the things Granny finds lead to adventure, and Gareth and Giselle have to figure out how to get back to their own time and place.

Latest Cover: Dear Tiger: I Miss You

The second cover completed this week was a reworking of an earlier cover for Carlie Simonsen’s Dear Tiger. The title has been updated, and the series is now planned to be five books long, so a set of covers needed to be created to pull the series together.

Carlie’s chapter books use Segoe Print Bold for the Title, and Tiger Rag LeT for her byline. I use a black base, and then build up from there.

Apart from the title and by-line branding, I had to figure out a slightly different look for each line, so, starting this year, I will be working with the older covers to update each series. In The Tiger Letters series, I’ve decided to use a series of planets as the background, and then add a second picture to emphasise some of the other content in the story.

I’ve also added in the series name and the book’s place in that series, and retained Dear Tiger as part of the title. This sometimes makes it hard for the entire title to fit, but we’re working on that. The pictures below show the original cover, followed by the place-holder cover, and the cover final. There’s not a log of difference, but it’s there.

Planetary artwork was by Roberto Pirola and sourced from Dreamstime, while the photograph of the notepad, pen and envelope was by Feng Yu, and also sourced from Dreamstime. I have manipulated both pieces of work and combined them to form the cover using GIMP.

“Dear Tiger, this has been the best day ever… but I lie.”

Simone Michaels is in trouble, but she doesn’t know how deep. Her parents’ expedition has gone missing, and that she’s afraid she’ll go missing, too. Will she get the chance to see her mum and dad, again?

Latest Cover: In Full Flight

It's a week for covers, although I'm starting to see the end of the 'to do' list on these. I might start taking photographs after this.

Here is the latest cover. It's for a young adult chapter book in Carlie Simonsen's Wings series, and it was a bit darker than the ones that have gone before it, so the cover had to match. I learned a couple of useful tricks while doing this cover, too, so I'll try to remember and write them up once the rest of the covers are done.

I used photographs from the following Dreamstime artists to create this cover. They are: Talashow (silhouette of man and tower); Isselee (wings on man silhouette); Designerartsolutions (boy); and Jill Lang (wings on boy). All other weirdness due to cropping, colourising, and playing with hue, saturation and lightness/darkness is mine.

Jack’s dad has a secret—a sad secret. He has never told Jack how he lost his wings. One day he does, and Jack’s world changes. At the same time, someone from his parents’ past comes into their present, and they must work out how to stop things from the past happening all over again.

In Full Flight is the third book in the Wings chapter book series, set around a family with wings and bird-like feet. This book is darker than the other two, dealing with themes of difference, discrimination at a state level, and finding a place to belong.