Category Archives: Photo Illustration

Cover Reveal – Elmo’s Sojourn

This is a cover for Melange Books.

Initially I thought this cover was going to be a bit more difficult to reconstruct from the proof image (since I start with a proof before creating the final), but again, the align layers function came in super handy, and all I had to do was some finishing tweaks to bring everything together. Once the basic pieces were in place, I went in and tweaked the lighting further, added in shadows and played with blending, and removed some of the distracting pieces from around the edges of the cover. Blades of grass and little star specks can distract from the center image if they stand out too much. Since we wanted a wormhole effect, this is also a case where I ended up using illustrations as well as photography in order to add to the science fiction look of the piece. Sometimes its helpful to look in the illustrated sections of the stock sites, and not just the photos. You never know what you might find that could be useful. πŸ™‚

SBibb - Elmo's Sojourn - Book Cover

Stock Photos from: Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-tornado-green-field-image18897874
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-back-view-senior-man-white-background-image35078222
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-old-trees-mist-laurel-forest-madeira-portugal-image35702305
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-banyan-trees-hilo-image18648599
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-tornado-city-image21115451
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-tornado-image3181364
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-traveling-wormhole-image21501588

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Cover Reveal and Review – The Devil’s Third

This is the third and final book cover for Rebekkah Ford’s Beyond the Eyes trilogy, as well as a few of the promo pieces I put together for it. You can see the wrap-around cover here:Β http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/The-Devil-s-Third-Book-Cover-423981244?q=gallery%3ASBibb&qo=0

SBibb - The Devil's Third - Book Cover

Facebook Banner:

SBibb - Devil's Third Promo

Bookmarks:

SBibb - Devil's Third PromoΒ SBibb - Devil's Third Promo

A bit about the cover: All images are my own, and I used the camera’s timer to get a few shots of me posing for the main character. We had a couple different ideas to work from, and when the first didn’t work out, it turned out handy that I’d done a few standing poses as well. Side note for photography– it can help to take multiple angles and poses in case one doesn’t have the desired effect. Photoshop CS6 to blend everything and photomanipulate the hand reaching out from the text.

(See the the previous covers for the series:Β https://sbibb.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/dark-spirits-cover-reveal/ andΒ http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/Beyond-the-Eyes-Wrap-Around-309769699 )

And now for the review. πŸ˜€

Disclaimer: Paranormal romance isn’t my preferred genre, and therefore, my opinions may be skewed compared to that of someone who regularly enjoys paranormal romance.

Overall, an enjoyable read. The characters have a realness about them that I enjoyed, and the description of setting was wonderful. (Seriously, I read one passage that made me think I could smell a rainy autumn day. Descriptions that really engage the senses like that make me a happy camper).

My favorite part of the story was where Paige goes into Carrie’s memories (so-to-speak, trying not to give away spoilers). The visuals were awesome, the pace really picked up (the beginning was just a bit slow, but served well to remind me what happened in the previous book), and the plot revealed a few nice tid-bits of information about the dark spirits.

I also enjoyed the magic system and finding out more about their world and <spoiler>the different doorways Paige can open. I actually would have been interested in seeing more of the different dimensions</spoiler> but we also got to see other new abilities, as well, which I enjoyed reading about.

That being said, there were a few downsides for me. A minor thing, but I did notice more typos in this story than in the previous ones. Also, there were several times I felt like something convenient happened or wasn’t fully explained. In all fairness, I was reading this in ten minute intervals while on break at work, so my attention wasn’t completely focused. Might have been different if I’d been able to read it in longer intervals.

I didn’t really get into the romance between Nathan and Paige, but then, I don’t typically read stories for the romance. And Brayden… I still kind of want to strangle him. I did, however, like seeing more of Ameerah’s character, and I also liked seeing the new characters, like Pip.

For me, I think my favorite book out of this trilogy was actually Dark Spirits. I really liked the interactions between Bael and Paige in that story, but I liked seeing Paige’s new powers in this one. Overall, though, I think this was a good series that paranormal romance readers are likely to enjoy. πŸ™‚

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Pony Dreams – Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books.

This is one of those covers where the photoshop auto-align layer came in helpful. So did smart object, as a way to keep everything sharp. I created the proof image, and when I went to create the final, I found everything was far too blurry. Finally suspected it had to do with how I’d been tweaking the angles of the image. I ended up redoing the final, with the help of the auto-align tool I was mentioning earlier, and that simplified the process considerably. Like with other covers where I used the proof image first, rather than using full size stock to start with, I did more clean-up to the final image, and thus came out with this. πŸ™‚

SBibb - Pony Dreams - Book Cover

Stock from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-blank-vintage-photo-paper-isolated-image26934533
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-pony-express-rides-again-image147907
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-pony-tail-portraits-image2181833
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-young-caucasian-male-portrait-attractive-handsome-model-wearing-jeans-white-button-shirt-isolated-white-background-image31290860
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-old-farmhouse-shed-image1933102

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Second Best – Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books.

SBibb - Second Best - Book Cover

 

This one was actually one of the easier covers for me, largely because we were working directly from a stock subscription, so I was able to work with the full-size images right from the get-go. For this, I played around with overall mood, trying to get a sense of the setting per the art request sheet, and I also asked about extra details regarding the character (which age to go with and so forth) from the author. We later added the faint scar on her cheek, which is more visible at larger resolutions, but wasn’t meant to be the point of focus. Overall, I’m really pleased with how this came out. πŸ™‚

Stock Photography from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-portrait-girl-image15706682
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-old-abandoned-factory-image18763339
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-chain-link-fence-image7247619
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-abstract-chain-link-fence-image7536291

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The Feast of Yule – Cover Reveal

This Β was a cover that managed to come together really easily. In this case, the author requested that there be a gnome on the cover if possible, and if we could get an autumn background, that’d be good, too. Mentioned that the gnomes were mischievous and at one point had axes in the story. So I went browsing through Dreamstime looking for images of gnomes. I didn’t find a gnome, per say… but three images later, I’d say that gnome looks mischevious, don’t you?

Sometimes a cover can be amazingly simple to put together. This was one of them. Also, I kept the same sort of title treatment to help it tie into her other story, Forgetting Fallenwood. πŸ™‚

SBibb - The Feast of Yule Book Cover

Stock Photography from Dreamstime:

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Santa’s Special Girl – Book Cover Reveal

Another cover for Melange Books. Today I talk about how photomanipulation is like a puzzle. πŸ™‚

Santa's Special Girl - Book Cover

This was a case where character creation was useful. The author requested that we have the little girl sitting on the other character’s lap, who is dressed as Santa. In this case, I didn’t have much luck finding the perfect picture from the main stock site I used, so I wound up putting a few photos together to create the resulting image. Found a guy dressed in a Santa suit who matched the description– changed his hair color. Gave him a slight smile. Found a Santa hat. Found a little girl sitting cross-legged in pajamas– helpful. Found a sitting Santa to use for the lap… and used puppet warp on the arm. Found a background. Put everything together, and voila! Photomanipulation is a bit like putting together puzzle pieces, but it helps to have an idea of what the pieces look like before starting the search to find the right one. Kind of like finding the corner pieces first and working your way into the puzzle from there.

Stock Photos from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-teen-punk-santa-image5438109
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-portrait-handsome-guy-image3590996
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-girl-sitting-santas-lap-getting-hug-image27538055
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-beautiful-six-year-old-girl-sitting-pajamas-over-white-image125808
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-doctor-s-office-image480487#_

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Cover Reveal – The Revolving Year

Forgot to post yesterday. Today we have a cover reveal. πŸ™‚

SBibb - The Revolving Year Wrap-around Cover

Full size version:Β http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/The-Revolving-Year-Cover-405328502

This is a wrap-around cover for Barking Rain Press. (Find the book here: http://www.barkingrainpress.org/dd-product/revolving-year/ )

Photoshop CS6. For this cover, the publisher already had a few images picked out they were interested in. I chose to play with this one, under the idea that the man in the picture needed to be removed, and the season changed to Fall. (See the original Shutterstock image: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=99948338&src=id ) This was actually quite a bit of fun, and the content aware fill tool proofed to be quite useful, as did the clone tool when I cropped the woman’s hair shorter. The additional fall trees photos are my own. Overall, I quite enjoyed creating this one, especially trying to set the tone. I did the basic title treatment, and the publisher adjusted it to fit their needs.

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Premade Cover Design and Stock Sites

Alert to cover designers using stock sites (nothing too horrible, just thought you might want to know):

I’ve been looking into the idea of doing premade book cover designs, and have thought about picking up a subscription plan at a stock site to do so. However, I was recently alerted to terms in several stock sites that make this a less feasible option. Subscription plans (at least at Dreamstime and Shutterstock) only include the basic or Royalty Free licences. Premade book covers are often considered “merchandise made for resale,” even if you plan to only sell them to one client. Different sites require different licences, so be sure to check with the site (possibly contact them directly, which I did), to check their terms of use.

I try to note any special terms (like number of copies permitted, and what an image can be used for) in my contract. πŸ™‚

Just a heads up, whenever you’re planning on using stock sites, be sure to check their terms, and verify the terms that may be an issue for your work. For example, be warned that some stock sites don’t want their models being used on erotica book covers. You may want to go to a site specifically based on selling romance covers for models in this case. Same goes with “sensitive subjects.”

Either way, it doesn’t hurt to ask, and if you’re using your own photography or collaborating with another artist, premade covers shouldn’t be a problem. πŸ™‚

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Swann Saga – Cover Reveal

This is a series set of covers for Melange Books. They asked me to redo the current set, so this is what we came up with. My goal was that each would have a coherent feeling of being part of a series, while also setting the mood. In order to do that, I used the same font and relative placement for the title and author name. I also framed the images with the same leaf texture, and had the faces at the same general placement and size. Something to consider whenever creating a series of covers is how to keep them consistent. πŸ™‚

SBibb - Swann Saga CoverΒ SBibb - Swann Saga CoverSBibb - Swann Saga Cover

Stock images from Dreamstime.

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Cover Reveal – Slip Sliding Away

This is a wrap around cover I did for Barking Rain Press.

(You can find the book here:Β http://www.barkingrainpress.org/dd-product/slip-sliding-away/Β ).

SBibb - Slip Sliding Away

(See a larger version on my Deviant Art Account:Β http://sbibb.deviantart.com/art/Slip-Sliding-Away-Cover-394872911Β )

For this particular cover, I actually did a photoshoot (three, to get the angle and items right) of my own. The publisher wanted a desk with the drink on it and the photos, and when I first started trying to put it together with stock, I realized I’d have a much easier time if I just set the shoot up myself (especially since we’d just finished that dresser…. which worked well for a desk setting). I set up the glass, notepad, and alarm clock, as well as used an empty picture frame and two gift cards to hold the place for the photos. (Note to self: Next time someone has the stock photos they want used already picked out, just print them off and put directly in the image… it’ll save editing time later). I also changed the card reflections to that of the stock photos (from Shutterstock). For the alarm clock, I quickly discovered the numbers weren’t going to appear on their own (same reason you can’t have your shutter speed faster than 1/200 or you get a black line through your image). We had considered using a digital font for the numbers on the clock, but I found the LEDs just faintly showed in the image, had so I used the overlay tools to bring out the parts I needed.

I also changed the color of the overall image so it’d look more like night (I played with in-camera color settings, but found Photoshop was a bit more versatile for me). I did try to angle the lights (Alien Bees) so they’d look more like a lamp or low window.

 

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