Latest Cover Design - Miguel Unmade

The first cover of the year is done and dusted and even approved... funny that.

It features original art from PhilCold at Dreamstime.

And words by me.

As you can see from the cover steps below, it was a simple cover to create, and the art work is what makes it.

Step 1: Update the short story template to the desired title and sub-title:

Step 2: Choose your art, resize, and position it so that you achieve the best effect for your cover. (Note: not all of Phil's original art can be seen here; you'll have to go to Dreamstime to check it out.)

Latest Cover Design: Dreams of the Serpent

The third cover designed in February was another science fiction cover, but for a short story – and one set mainly on a world. The hardest thing about this cover was finding a suitable alien landscape. I wanted a rocky plateau, but couldn’t find one that would allow me to put a humanoid figure in the foreground, so I decided on a river background. That was more accessible, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of artwork I found.

This cover only shows part of the entire river image by Melkor3d at Dreamstime, and the artist has quite a number of other evocative landscapes that would make suitable book-cover backgrounds… or for other projects.

Because I’ve worked on a number of these short story covers now, the branding is fairly settled, so I can prepare the title, background and byline quite easily. I use Berlin Sans FB for the title, and Baskerville Oldface for the byline – and GIMP for the cover creation. The process is the same I use for Carlie’s titles, where I firstly create a black background and then add the words.

In this case, I had to import the river landscape as a layer, using the ‘Open as Layers’ option in the ‘File’ tab drop-down. Once it was imported, I resized it to cover the cover, and then used the ‘Move’ tool in the Toolbox to position it so the portion of the image that is seen is what I wanted on the cover.

Once I was happy with the background image, and its positioning, I used the ‘Autocrop Image’ option in the ‘Image’ tab drop-down to take away the parts I hadn’t used, eliminating overhang. I then opened up the lizardman image which I sourced from Junichi Shimazaki, also at Dreamstime.

Even though this image was on a white background, I still needed to remove that background, so I saved the image as a new document, using the same file name, but adding ‘isolated’ to it, and then went through the process for isolating the lizardman from its white background. As soon as that process was complete, I closed the new image, and then opened it as a layer in the cover image window.

Once again, I used the ‘Move’ tool from the Toolbox to position the lizardman on the cover, and then I used the ‘Autocrop Image’ option from the ‘Image’ tab menu to trim the cover.

As soon as this was complete, all I had to do was adjust the cover as a whole. TIP: If you want to adjust just one image on the cover, highlight the layer the image is in, and then work while that layer is highlighted (although, on a bad day for GIMP, you might need to work on the image as a separate entity, and then import it). If you want to adjust the entire image and its components, you need to highlight the background layer and work while it is highlighted.

For this image, I decreased the brightness bot negative 61, and then increased the contrast to positive 26, using the ‘Brightness-Contrast’ option on the drop-down menu under the ‘Colors’ tab.

The final cover looks like this:

Latest Cover Design: C.M. Simpson: Short Works from 2017, Volume 1 (Fantasy & Urban Fantasy)

The second cover completion for the month is for a collection to be released on January 27, 2019. This one's a collection of all the fantasy and urban fantasy short story released by C.M. Simpson Publishing in 2017.

The cover concept is based on the tradition of earlier covers in this line, where I draw elements of the design from the cover designs for any of the short stories published that year and contained in the collection. It was fairly difficult to decide which ones would work best, but here's the process.

The first step was, of course, to put down a black base, and add in the title and author by-line. After that I added in the first element - the dragon from the short story, The Seeker from Hivrala, because what's a fantasy cover without a dragon, right?

Because of the way the dragon is positioned, it was easy to decide to place the other elements in a diagonal line to draw the eye across the cover. For these, I chose the lizardman from the fantasy short, Luck Among Servants, and the unicorn from the urban fantasy short, A Matter of Justice.

The dragon is a modified form of original artwork by Valentyna Chukhlyebova, and was isolated and colour-altered during the cover process for The Seeker from Hivrala. The lizardman is original artwork by Junichi Shimazaki, and was isolated during the cover creation process for Luck Among Servants. The unicorn is from original artwork by Corey A. Ford, and was isolated during the cover creation process for A Matter of Justice.  All images were sourced from Dreamstime.com, and all modifications were done using GIMP.

The final thing that needed to be added was a background. For this I decided to take the ocean combination from A White Pinnacle. That background was originally created using photography by Ig0rzh (the lightning over the ocean), and Pumidol Lelerdsakulvong (the rock pinnacle). Those images were manipulated using GIMP, and sourced from Dreamstime.com.

When I was done, I thought something was missing, and decided to add the pixie from Memory's Return and Road Trip to the top right of the cover in order to balance out the dragon. I chose not to add another image to the bottom left, but did move the lizardman a fraction more to the right to add more weight to that side of the cover. The pixie is another piece of art by Junichi Shimazaki at Dreamstime.

The background was still a little bit light for the white lettering, so I used GIMP's brightness and contrast feature to darken all elements, and sharpen their edges. It's interesting to note that contrast defines images more, but also makes them a little darker, as well.

When all elements had been modified with increased contrast and decreased brightness, I noticed that the pixie was still too light, so I selected her layer in the 'Layers' tool bar, and the selected the brightness/contrast option and repeated the process. Once that was done, the letters were more visible even though she was behind them, giving me the final cover image.

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: Reluctant Liaison

In addition to getting a little sketching done, and starting back with taking photographs, I found I needed to get the next round of covers ready for C.M. Simpson Publishing. This is the first of the four covers I finalised to round out the week.

I’ve started templating the branding on the covers for each author’s line of writing. For the short stories, this included adding a line to make it clear on the cover that the story was a short story, and not a novel. I use GIMP to create the covers and do any manipulation of the photographs and art work, so I use Baskerville Old Face for the C.M. Simpson byline, and Berlin Sans FB for the Title and story note.

Because the completion of the story is often blogged before the cover is created, I now create a place holder cover for each story, and then fill in the elements just prior to the editing and formatting stage. This cover went through three stages: the template, the background, and the final stage, after additional artwork and photography had been sourced from Dreamstime.

In this case, the background is a clip from one of my photographs, and I’ve turned to Junichi Shimazaki for the female pixie and Yekophotostudio for my Paranormal Operations Squad officer. My only disappointment was in not being able to find any good, tough-looking male pixies, or pixies sitting on a branch, but you can’t have it all, and I love Junichi’s pixie gals.

 

I woke up in a car—upside down, staring into the faces of a half dozen pixies sitting on a tree branch. To one side, was a cliff face, to the other, sky, and things were starting to shift. Apparently, I’d had an interesting night… if only I could remember what it was, and why I’d run, and why following the pixies scared me almost as much as the idea of staying in the car…

In Reluctant Liaison the Paranormal Operations Squad is faced with a dilemma outside their usual remit, when Otherworld and ‘real’ world cultures clash.

Latest Cover: Serpents' Souls & Dragons' Hearts

I've just finished another dark science fiction cover - although it looks very fantasy... hmmm...

Artwork was sourced from Dreamstime artists: Junichi Shimazaki (the lizardman) and Yorkberlin (the snake woman). The spider photograph came from Panayot Kindalov. The background jungle is one of mine, as is the manipulation and alteration.

Latest Cover - Wheelchair Mermaid

Yesterday, I completed the cover for Carlie Simonsen's Wheelchair Mermaid. Here are the print-on-demand and ebook versions:

Covers, Covers, Everywhere...

...or what I've been doing for the last week. Still a bit snowed under, but things are starting to get caught up and the schedule is coming back into line. We might get some sketching done, yet. In the meantime, I've done a few more covers for short stories, and I will have covers coming up for collections and longer works soon. Covers done in the last week are as follows:

Cover Completed for Rocky Touches Down

This is the latest cover completed for C.M. Simpson Publishing - for the fifth book in the Otherworld Series: Rocky Touches Down.

Cover Completed for Carlie Simonsen's Rocky Rides the Space Range

Hey all, Just completed the cover for Carlie Simonsen's February release - Rocky Rides the Space Range. For this cover, I changed the background, but wanted to keep the 'Rocky' image as a common image on all the covers for this series, so I set it in the bottom left corner, just as I had for all the othe titles. I also kept the writing style for both the title and byline the same to keep the series covers tied together. And, of course, the end result was helped along by the wonderful art work of Yvonne Less. Here's the result:

And the story? Well, I'm told it goes a bit like this:

When Rocky’s ship stops to resupply at Tallona’s First Moon, Rocky and his classmates head down to the surface. Seeing moon dragons, ice beetles, dangerous butterflies and flowers that grow on the moon’s surface seem like a good way to spend a day. Rocky never expects to have to deal with moon raiders as well. When his little sister runs away to protect the dragon eggs, Rocky’s troubles really begin. Can he sneak out of the base, find his sister, and bring her back without the pirates or moon base security ever finding out? All he knows is that he has to try.

Rocky Rides the Space Range is the fourth book in the Otherworld Adventures series, which is set on Rocky’s journey to the world of Tallona, where his parents will farm alongside the aliens who have asked them for help.

Cover Completed for Carlie Simonsen's Rocky and the Great Teddybear Rescue

I know - I've been busy. In December, I had to take my art and photography hat off and put on my student, writer, editor and publisher hats instead. On the upside, here's a new cover I did for Carlie Simonsen's January release:

E-book cover for Rocky and the Great Teddybear Rescue

Rocky wakes up from stasis, and realises he’s nearly home, but he hasn’t been awake for five minutes when things start to go wrong. His little sister’s teddybear is missing, and it’s not the only thing. A cat has gone missing from the animals’ deck. And then his sister goes missing, too. Can Rocky find her, and maybe Teddy and the cat, before the ship arrives and all three are lost forever?

Rocky and the Great Teddybear Rescue is the third book in the Otherworld Adventures series, which is set on Rocky’s journey to the new world, where his parents will farm alongside the aliens who have asked them to help.

Cover for Print-on-Demand paperback

Cover Creation: Hammer and the Trolls

Hammer and the Trolls was a little difficult to dream up a cover for. In the end, I went with a variation on the opening scene, which involved Hammer, the castle and the drop ship. Because the princess is pretty central to the plot, I also needed a princess, but she couldn't be just any princess. She had to be tough and a princess, so I headed on over the Dreamstime.com and began searching.

I ended up selecting four photographs:

Tomasz Tulik supplied my tough-girl princess:

© Photographer: Zoomteam | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Aleksminyaylo1 supplied the perfect Hammer:

© Photographer: Aleksminyaylo1 | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Junichi Shimazaki supplied Hammer's dropship:

© Photographer: Tsuneomp | Agency: Dreamstime.com

and

Igor Stramyk had the ideal castle:

© Photographer: Stramyk | Agency: Dreamstime.com

After that I took the following steps:

1.  Snipped the castle down to book cover size - which was a shame, because I wanted to show more of it;
2. Isolated Hammer;
3. Isolated the princess;
4. Reduced Hammer and the princess in size and arranged them on the cover.
5. Added the dropship.

The cover went through three design changes:

Hammer cover with ship in flight

Hammer cover with ship landed

Hammer cover without the ship

I decided I liked the ship on the ground, but that it needed a tiny little tweak:

Final cover for Hammer and the Trolls