Tag Archives: book cover designer

July 2, 2014 · 7:00 am

Behind the Scenes – Seeking Sir Gwain

A cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, I wanted it to look similar to the first of the series, Seducing Sir Gwain. I gave it a similar texture and color treatment. We actually went through a couple proofs before deciding on this stock image. We wanted it to convey the genre, as well as still fit the characters in the books. I changed their hair colors to match the description in the art form.

Stock Photos from Dreamstime.

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-old-paper-texture-grunge-backgrounds-image31086277
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-sexy-couple-hugging-bedroom-image29467309

Behind the Scenes – Mira’s View

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, since the background was horizontal and worked well to wrap-around, I went ahead and created a wraparound background, rather than my usual basic background. This ended up using two different images for the elf… the face and head were one photo, to match the description of the character, and the body/outfit were another, to match the style of outfit requested on the art form. On the final image, since the hair was cut off at the edges on the original photo, I played with the smudging effects to create a more illustrated, fantastical look, and I also played with the softness of the background using Gaussian blur, Lens Blur, and overlay/soft light effects.

Here’s the end result. 🙂

Basic wrap-around, no spine or text on back cover:

Front E-Book Cover:

Stock images from Dreamstime:

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-portrait-young-beautiful-woman-long-flowin-image24027857
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-elf-image37703849
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-green-forest-mountain-view-top-some-villas-image32433154

Behind the Scenes – Fateful Encounters

This is a cover for Melange Books.

The fun thing with putting this cover together was trying to convey the sinister/mysterious mood and keep with the thriller category. In this case, I went with showing the city at the bottom and hinting at one of the characters on the cover… without actually showing her full face. Add in the gritty city textures, and you have a cover. Something to keep in mind during cover creation is what you do with the text. Using clipping masks, you can add texture directly to the text and help incorporate it into the overall image.