Take Two on a New Cover

So, sometimes I do something and I’m not quite happy with it, but it takes me a while to work out what I don’t like. Anyway, this is what happened with Anna and the Rock Dragons. I’ve spent the last month pondering the cover, while I go through edits. It was missing something.

I finally realised it didn’t look finished. Well, I didn’t know what to do about that—oil pastels can be a bit tricky—so I went back to my art folders to see what had attracted me to using them in the first place. The work before had a lot more lines in them, more colour showing through, more lines in parallel. I thought about that.

One of the biggest problems in the original cover is the shirt—there’s too much blank space, and the speckling looks messy. Other things I didn’t like were the outer lines—they look hesitant and almost temporary, and the figures aren’t clear on the page. Also, the colours don’t show through as clearly as they do in the raw, and that’s a shame, because colour is what drew me to oil pastels in the first place.

So, I kept editing and tried to come up with a solution, before I had to decide between delaying the release, or releasing it in a cover I wasn’t entirely happy with. Here’s what I’ve done so far: 

1. Played with the original art, redefined the lines, thickened them, and added more.
2. Scanned, trimmed and darkened the scan.
3. Played with the font on the title.

The cover before I played with it:

The cover after I played with it:

I still don't know if I like it... but, let’s see how it goes.

Cover Design and Creation: Anna and the Rock Dragons

Some people ask me how I come up with my covers, but I think the hardest part of any cover is coming up with the illustration. After that, the basic cover design is relatively simple. You just have to remember the following things:

• The illustration tends to draw more attention if it contains a face or human figure.
• The illustration is the first thing that will catch a potential reader’s eye.
• The illustration should alert the reader to the genre.
• Text needs to let the reader know what the book is called and who wrote it.
• Text must be readable fro
• All elements of the cover have to work together to draw the eye.
• m a distance – or in a thumbnail.
• Text should be easy to read.
• Text should harmonise rather than dominate the cover, but it conveys the most important information, so it should draw slightly more attention than the illustration.

With these thoughts in mind, and with the illustration already chosen, I created a new image in GIMP. I made it 1875 pixels wide and 2850 pixels high, as those dimensions seem to suit the cover dimensions for a variety of platforms, and are easily adjusted to suit others. I then set the resolution at 300 pixels, as that is the minimum acceptable for most platforms. Finally, I decided I would use a black background for the cover and used the bucket-fill tool to turn the background black.

Once those basics were taken care of, I opened and resized the base illustration in a different window before saving it for import.

I imported the resized illustration, where it formed a new layer. I then enlarged the illustration layer to fit the background.

 

Once I was happy with how the image fit the background, I looked at the branding I had used for the Carlie Simonsen Chapter Books, and added the title and author name using the same texts.

Looking at it, I decided I wanted to differentiate Carlie’s young adults from her tween-to-young-adult chapter books, and the best way to do that was to change the script, so it looked less ‘younger audience’. This involved clicking on the Tool Options for the writing Tool.

You will notice there is a ‘Text’ box next to the Font box. If you click on the ‘Text’ box, you will get a drop-down list illustrating and naming the fonts available, and you can get a vague idea of what the text will look like before selecting it.

The main key, however, is to experiment with different fonts for the author…

… and then adjust the font size to suit.

And then you do the same for the title font, adjusting the positioning until you are happy with how it looks.

Once I’m happy with the look of the base cover, I then adjust it for the platforms with different requirements. Most, such as DriveThru and Ominlit, only need minor adjustments to size, but others, such as CreateSpace, require a slight rearrangement of elements.

Base Cover for Anna and the Rock Dragons

CreateSpace Large-Print Cover

CreateSpace Normal Print Cover

Oil Pastel Scrimshaw - Brief Introduction and How-To

I like oil pastels—they’re a real challenge, and I love that. I also rediscovered a love for the scrimshaw technique when I was undertaking an art unit for my Bachelor of Teaching.

So, when I was thinking of a cover for Anna and the Rock Dragons, I thought I’d see what this art form would produce.

As with any picture, you need to have a vague idea of what you want the picture to look like. I have had these images in my head for over twenty years.

But I wanted the rock dragons in to look a little different—somehow less than dragon-perfect, a little lumpy like the rocks from where they drew their names—so the dragons in my head weren’t quite a perfect match.

And then there was the drawing medium to consider. I have a little trouble doing fine detail with the pastels themselves, but add in the scrimshawing and it’s possible to do quite fine lines. Also, scrimshaw into pastel is unforgiving. Once the line is made, it stays, so you have to live with your mistakes or start over. Anyway, enough chatter. Here’s how I do it:

• Rough out the design. You can do this in pencil, or you can draw straight down in pastel. Just sketch out the main colour blocks. 

• Darken the colour areas, until you’ve got the effect you’re after. Do this fairly lightly so that any mistakes can be overridden in the next phase. 

NOTE: Looking back, I think I should have had this picture to refer to while I was working the scrimshaw. It would have helped me remember some of the lines I wanted to make, as well as approximately where the colour blocks started and ended. Ah well, a note for next time.

• Once you have the colour areas about where you want them, go over them in the colours you want to uncover. Make sure this layer is quite heavily coloured to provide a base of colour. 

• Now, make a light shading of black over the rest. Work in one direction. I have started with horizontal lines.

• Darken the layer. 

• Working in another direction, add a second layer of black. You will notice that the black covers some colours more easily than it covers others.

• Work a third layer of black in another direction, until the picture below is as completely obscured as possible.

NOTE: This process can be quite messy. Make sure you can clean the surface you are working on, or put a protective cover down first. Do not expect to keep your hands clean. 

• The next thing you need is something sharp to draw with. Pencils and pens are not suited to this work as you want to use something that does not leave a mark of its own. This time ’round, I used bamboo skewers.

• Pressing lightly with the skewer, draw your picture through the layer of black, pressing only hard enough to reveal the colours beneath.

NOTE: If you press too hard, you will either hole the paper, or remove both the black and the coloured layer leaving a white line. This is a problem if you want colour, not so much if you’re after white.

NOTE: It really helps to have a reference picture for the underlayers and outlines. I drew this stage from memory.

• As you work, you will notice that the oil pastels peel up in little curls. It is important to remove these curls, before you lean on them and grind them back into the picture.

NOTE: I do this by picking them up with the tip of the skewer and then wiping the tip clean on a tissue or piece of cloth.

• When you’re done, you’re picture should have no loose pieces of pastel on its surface. It is now ready for scanning or preparing for presentation.

NOTE: Regardless of whether you photograph the oil pastels with a flash, or using natural light, you will get some sort of reflection.

flash photo

daylight - no flash

flash dimmed by tissue paper

And that is the basic process for oil pastel scrimshaw. I will play a bit more with this medium and update the results on the blog.