Wow this one is close. I mean nixing the subtitles and a drop shadow would do it.
Lydia
7 years ago
Drag Splendor? It took me a long time to see the on at the end of the first word. Get rid of the pattern in the o. It’s not necessary and makes the title hard to read. Not to mention the art is really too busy to begin with. Make the text a different color (maybe a bright gold like the woman’s sleeve) to balance some of the texture in the art and make it look less like an afterthought, move it up and make it bigger. It’s losing the fight with both the art and the author’s name as it is.
Otherwise the art is very good, which we don’t see much here. Maybe better for a paper book than as an eBook thumbnail, but fix the title and it will do.
Oh. I just took another look and the woman’s torso has been stretched in an unnatural and off-putting way. If you pull her upper half down to make a normal human shape, there would be plenty of room to move the title up.
I wondered about that too. I think the art was squished to fit the cover. I captured the jpg of the cover and expanded it until the length wrist to finger tip of both hands matched. * aspect ratio It’s good artwork … as Nathan noted. It deserved better treatment.
At reasonable proportions there would be cover space for title and byline above and below.
…and super-busy artwork CAN work well if handled right: just think of all those old Josh Kirby illustrations for Terry Pratchett covers. There, they put the title and author name in a box so they didn’t compete with the illustration.
That Kirby art was fantastic. It wasn’t a cover, but look up Death with a Kitten some day. I think it was one of the full-page pieces in The Last Hero.
red
7 years ago
Previously released as “The ‘O’ with the Mismatched Wallpaper.”
Wow this one is close. I mean nixing the subtitles and a drop shadow would do it.
Drag Splendor? It took me a long time to see the on at the end of the first word. Get rid of the pattern in the o. It’s not necessary and makes the title hard to read. Not to mention the art is really too busy to begin with. Make the text a different color (maybe a bright gold like the woman’s sleeve) to balance some of the texture in the art and make it look less like an afterthought, move it up and make it bigger. It’s losing the fight with both the art and the author’s name as it is.
Otherwise the art is very good, which we don’t see much here. Maybe better for a paper book than as an eBook thumbnail, but fix the title and it will do.
Oh. I just took another look and the woman’s torso has been stretched in an unnatural and off-putting way. If you pull her upper half down to make a normal human shape, there would be plenty of room to move the title up.
I wondered about that too. I think the art was squished to fit the cover. I captured the jpg of the cover and expanded it until the length wrist to finger tip of both hands matched. * aspect ratio
It’s good artwork … as Nathan noted. It deserved better treatment.
At reasonable proportions there would be cover space for title and byline above and below.
…and super-busy artwork CAN work well if handled right: just think of all those old Josh Kirby illustrations for Terry Pratchett covers. There, they put the title and author name in a box so they didn’t compete with the illustration.
That Kirby art was fantastic. It wasn’t a cover, but look up Death with a Kitten some day. I think it was one of the full-page pieces in The Last Hero.
Previously released as “The ‘O’ with the Mismatched Wallpaper.”