Uncovered
One of the other things* I need before I can publish is a cover. I started work on this a couple of months ago, found it depressing and overwhelming, and gave up for a while. Friday I decided to take another stab at it. Today I figured I would post about it and see what people think.
My first concept was simple -- black background, white text, three riings to symbolize "polyamorous romance". I was appalled by the first attempt and decided to try a different color scheme. I'm putting this one up mainly because Lut liked the black & white color scheme better than the one I preferred. The "three rings" are from a public domain photo.
The brown-and-gold one below is the first one I considered adequate. The ring image is a modified version of this photo by Jeff Belmonte, which is licensed on CC 2.0.
After doing the one above, I spend some time thinking about what image I'd want if I used an illustration instead of a symbol. I looked at other romance covers for inspiration. This cover, for The Wrong Mr. Wright, made me think of showing the three protagonists dancing, which is even something that happens in the book. And then I gave up for a while, because my art skillz are not remotely qualified to do a realistic painting.
But since I've been doing all the header illustrations, I figured I could try doing the same style for a cover illustration. I spent Friday and today working at it. It doesn't look like it would take that long, does it?
Also, somehow the ratio on it is different from the others. I am not sure what happened there.
The typeface is Amazone BT (squished and re-kerned here and there). I made a list of 27 different fonts that I already owned and liked for the cover, and then every time I went to actually do the lettering, I used Amazone BT instead of trying one of the others. I dunno what's up with that.
None of these are exactly done; for instance, on the last one I don't like the way the title text interacts with the background arches (I spent a lot of time on those arches! Grrrr backgrounds. Now I have to spend more time on them, or possibly just rip them out. You will see more of these in a future header, and Now You Know Why. Because I am not going to have wasted all that time drawing them.)
Here's a poll if you want to pick your favorite(s):
Poll
Suggestions welcome! (Though I may not take them, due to time/money/psych lim contraints.)
* There are so many things, you guys. So. Many. THINGS.
My first concept was simple -- black background, white text, three riings to symbolize "polyamorous romance". I was appalled by the first attempt and decided to try a different color scheme. I'm putting this one up mainly because Lut liked the black & white color scheme better than the one I preferred. The "three rings" are from a public domain photo.
The brown-and-gold one below is the first one I considered adequate. The ring image is a modified version of this photo by Jeff Belmonte, which is licensed on CC 2.0.
After doing the one above, I spend some time thinking about what image I'd want if I used an illustration instead of a symbol. I looked at other romance covers for inspiration. This cover, for The Wrong Mr. Wright, made me think of showing the three protagonists dancing, which is even something that happens in the book. And then I gave up for a while, because my art skillz are not remotely qualified to do a realistic painting.
But since I've been doing all the header illustrations, I figured I could try doing the same style for a cover illustration. I spent Friday and today working at it. It doesn't look like it would take that long, does it?
Also, somehow the ratio on it is different from the others. I am not sure what happened there.
The typeface is Amazone BT (squished and re-kerned here and there). I made a list of 27 different fonts that I already owned and liked for the cover, and then every time I went to actually do the lettering, I used Amazone BT instead of trying one of the others. I dunno what's up with that.
None of these are exactly done; for instance, on the last one I don't like the way the title text interacts with the background arches (I spent a lot of time on those arches! Grrrr backgrounds. Now I have to spend more time on them, or possibly just rip them out. You will see more of these in a future header, and Now You Know Why. Because I am not going to have wasted all that time drawing them.)
Here's a poll if you want to pick your favorite(s):
Poll
Suggestions welcome! (Though I may not take them, due to time/money/psych lim contraints.)
* There are so many things, you guys. So. Many. THINGS.