Goblin Tales Cover

[jimhines]

I’ve been working on cover designs for Goblin Tales, my hopefully-soon-to-be-epublished collection of five goblin-related short stories.  The cover art is by Daniel Ernle.  He created this image for my German short fiction collection Der Goblin-Held, and I contacted him for permission to use it for Goblin Tales.

Some of the things I kept in mind

Comments

[feanna]

I like the blue, and the version with less zoom (on the left) it seems more open somehow, like in keeping with your description, there's room for the reader - and you can sort of imagine Jig going somewhere.
The inclusion of the blurb reminds me of actual (US)paper(back) book covers, so if you're going for that...

[jimhines]

What about going even further with showing Jig going somewhere, like so?

[skipperdee]

I really like this version. Not sure if that's outline or drop-shadow, but it looks good.

[margaret_y]

Hey, this one is quite good!

[finnyb]

I like this version the best of all of them.

[feanna]

I like that we can see more of the scenery and where he could be going (also, I just now realized that he's in a forest, before I was getting cave vibes, not that that makes a big difference) and I like the rays of sunlight.
For the thumbnail though (if it's going to be the size of this pic, especially if it's going to be smaller),having Jig a bit bigger might be better though.

Maybe something between this and the one at the top, with Jig moved to the left and without the blurb, so that you can keep a bit of the perspective/scenery.

[elektra]

They're all nice--but this one is the most easily readable, so it gets my vote. I think it's the outline. When you're trying to set text against a varying color background, an outline can make a huge difference in visibility.
Love the artwork, too.

[corinneduyvis]

FWIW, I'm not as sure about the text here, but I like the placement of the figure a lot better. If it'll still show up well on a smaller format, this has my vote.

Something else that might be worth considering: how does it look in grayscale? It'd be nice if there's enough contrast to at least make out the text and figure on ereaders.

[celtic_catgirl]

I like this one. The outline is a definite improvement and with the way it is cropped now seeing the space in front of Jig I can almost imagine that Jig is asking me to go on this adventure with him. It's more like he is doing something rather than posing for the 'camera'

It reminds me of one of something that is an excellent example of story telling through artwork.

[theguindo]

Chiming in with everyone else. This one definitely feels more inviting and adventurous with that wide-open "LET'S EXPLORE" vibe.

[elialshadowpine]

I like this one best of all. The text is easier to read and it has more of an adventurous feeling to it, for me.