This was a gift to my husband. He’d surprised me by dressing up all fancy-like and grabbing his sword (nice way to introduce the idea of an impromptu date), and I got a few pictures. A few days later I put this together, using some pictures I’d shot earlier of a hawk he spotted and some woodsy pictures. All the images are mine and this was completed in Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4.0. 🙂
Filed under Personal Work, Photo Illustration
The moment has arrived! I have new photographic illustrations to show off. This was done with Katherine modeling, and she did a great job doing and portraying what I asked. And the dress fit, two. Definitly helpful (especially when I find the dress I want to use, then find the model, afterward). The theme of this one started out with the idea of doing a Soda Pop Shop or sock hop look. Or really, it came from looking at old Coca Cola Ads and wanting to try to emulate those ads.
So I tried that on a couple of pictures. First one… well… it needed work. So I tried it again using a different pose, and I’m hoping that one captured more of the look and feel of the old ads. Also, thanks to my husband’s grandfather to letting us borrow a time period coke bottle to use. And thanks to McDonalds for having those cool Coca Cola glasses. And funny thing is, I’m not even that big of a soda fan. So there’s my note on the usefulness of finding props that aid in the appearance of time. So yeah, there was my fun experiment with commercial advertising.
Meanwhile, I also did a few images meant more in my usual style of sci-fi, dystopia, and fantasy. And reminder to self… don’t watch MirrorMask right before starting on a manip project. Great movie, awesome effects, but totally messes up how I usually do digital manipulations.
If you’re curious to see the images I’ve just mentioned, take a look at the Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157630562937410/show/
Otherwise, enjoy a few samples here. 🙂
Filed under Book Covers, Personal Work, Photo Illustration
Great news! I’ve just started offering premade covers on my facebook page. 😀 Prices will vary, depending on the difficulty level of the cover. Please keep in mind that the font, color of font, and placement can be changed depending on your book. Also, minor adjustments can be made with regard to overall color cast of the image, blurring, etc. Feel free to ask if your interested in one of these covers. 🙂
Recognize it? (From banner above) This is one of the covers available to be purchased, and happens to be a wrap-around cover. (Can also be done as a front cover). Great for fantasy or sci-fi, and especially young adult. 🙂
Premades: http://www.facebook.com/sbibbphoto
Custom Designed Covers: https://sbibb.wordpress.com/book-cover-design-services/
Main Website: http://www.sbibbphoto.com
So, if there’s anything you’re looking to see, just ask. I’m going to continue uploading more covers over time, and hopefully get some new ones created soon. 🙂
Filed under Book Covers, Business Ventures, Writing
Whew. These past few days have been hectic. It’s time for me to order the print version of 1000 Words, and thankfully, I’m in the final stages of preparation. I’ve got all the stories done. All the covers are done. I’ve just uploaded The Magician to Smashwords. Now I’ve just got to review the print book file on Createspace and make adjustments as needed.
Anyways, here’s the cover for my latest “1000 Words” short story,The Magician. Originally it also had a border meant to look like stage curtains, with little black and white checkered buttons on the side. I was told it was too cluttered, and looked like he was in a coffin. So… I cut back on some of the florishes, adjust the text for readability, and voila! We have a cover!
Short Story on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/153295
Look forward to Socks (a sci-fi young adult romance) and Four-Way Stop (a literary horror story) on Smashwords soon. I plan to make more notes about cover design with this project in the coming posts, and I’ll also have further announcements regarding the upcoming print and eBook editions of “1000 Words,” the complete anthology.
By the way, if any of you have been reviewing the short stories already up on Smashwords, thank you. It’s neat to see the reviews trickling in. Really neat if they’re good, but still nice to know what’s not so good.
Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions. 🙂
Filed under Book Covers, Writing
When I went to create the book cover for Aenima, one of my “1000 Words” short stories, I had a sketch in mind. I wanted the upper half of a winged lady, with a pair of wings framing her and shaped with cogs.
That didn’t exactly happen.
I did manage to get a picture of cogs that I needed, thanks to my fiance for finding the cog while out on his dad’s farm, and I had the pictures I wanted for the lady. But I ran into issues of developing it into the actual cover. Finally I compromised. The wings are present (though looking like butterfly wings), and I managed to incorporate cogs into the picture without actually having them on the wings. Of course, right after I published the short story on Smashwords and starting writing this post, it hit me that the wings in the story are neither bird nor butterfly wings, but dragonfly wings. *Sigh.* Amazing, how I didn’t catch that, even as both the author and the illustrator.
Of course, once I tried putting the text on the image, I realized that spacing did not want to work well for text placement. And I had a horrible time with the font itself. Thankfully, I was directed to look at dafont.com for potential fonts, and found the lovely “Steamwreck” was commercially usable, and free. Yay! (Since then, I have been directed to a font site that allows people to download 10,000 fonts for $20.00. And they’re commercially usable. Not all are suitable for book cover designing, but still… it’s been helpful.) So I finally took the main image and made it smaller, then reused the background, changed the border color, and added little cogs around the text itself.
Overall, I’m pleased with it. I like the book cover image than the “Lady In Cogs” image by itself.
Aenima on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152094
So now, for a quick update:
Since uploading The Dreamkeeper yesterday, it’s had 42 downloads. The other stories still have a few downloads trickling in, though I’m not sure if that’s due to uploading more stories, or to people finding them on thier own. The Carrier has done the best job so far of still being downloaded. Shafted Dreams is having the least success. I will be interested in seeing if they continue to be downloaded once the project is complete, or if downloads will slow down. Since everything’s free, price is not a factor.
I’m considering uploading a couple other short stories I wrote (longer ones) once I complete this project, and actually pricing them to see if it makes a difference, and if those are actually purchased. Plus I’ll have the anthology version, which will cost money, however, all the “1000 Words” short stories will remain free, at least for the time being. That way, if anyone wants to support me, they can, but no one has to.
I’ve just completed another cover for one of the stories I need to write, and I’ve written a sci-fi romance story to add to the project. This means that I have two stories to edit, two stories to write, and four covers to design.
You can find my latest short story, Aenima, at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152094
Filed under Book Covers, Writing
Cover reveal for The Dreamkeeper, part of my “1000 Words project.” I’m quite pleased with this cover, though the typography decided it wanted to give me a difficult time finding something that worked for the story and also looked good in thumbnail size. I finally decided that the “1000 Words” part would just have to be smaller in thumbnail, and likely unreadable at that size, while the author name and title would be clear. If it catches someone’s attention, hopefully they’ll click it and see the larger cover.
That’s the idea, anyway.
So for the quick update, The Dreamkeeper is now available on Smashwords. It’s also sitting at 900 words, rather than 1000. Why? Because I kept cutting words, rather than adding them. AfterThe Hunt, in which I probably should have cut another hundred words from the story, it’s become rather evident that I follow the theory of making a story as long or as short as it needs to be. That means that if it needs to be longer, fine. (But you might be suprised at what can be cut, as I’m discovering with my YA novel). However, if it should be shorter, that’s fine, too.
Of course, since this is specifically for a 1000 words project, I’m going to try to keep it within 100 words either way.
As for the statistics of the project so far, Snow Witch hasn’t had any more downloads, though The Carrier is still getting the occasional download, and now sits at 76 downloads total. How many people actually read it, I don’t know. Shafted Dreams is being… well… shafted, at a low 13 downloads since I uploaded it three days ago, while The Hunt has surpassed it with a total of 24 downloads and 1 review. Not bad for uploading it yesterday. Everything’s free, of course, so that may help me get downloads, where having them cost $0.99 didn’t have much result.
As of uploading The Dreamkeeper a few minutes ago, it has had three downloads. I shall hope that continues. 🙂
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151854
Meanwhile, I am working on another cover for an unwritten “1000 Words” story, tentatively called,The Magician, and I have three story ideas to play with. One shall be young adult dystopian/war. 🙂
Filed under Book Covers, Writing
So after reading the post (http://www.ravven.com/blog/2012/03/la-estrella-book-trailer/) by Raaven, which had the book trailer for La Estrella, I started getting an interest in book trailers. To be honest, I’d never really paid them much attention. I figured that if I’d read the blurb and that would tell me whether I liked it or not.
But then I started looking at book trailers, and the movie-like quality of them fascinated me. Some where less than thrilling, but others quickly caught my attention. The one Raaven mention, La Estrella, has me wanting to read the book, though I know very little Spanish. (Here’s to hoping it eventually gets translated).
Another one that caught my eye was also posted by Raaven (http://www.ravven.com/blog/2012/02/book-trailers/), called Harbinger. Personally, it’s not the type of book that I’d normally pick up, though I was fascinated by the trailer. I would give it a look now if I saw it in a book store, though I probably would have passed it over before.
Now publishers are also promoting thier books with book trailers through Facebook.
Starters instantly caught my eye, and I went on to read the sample chapter. Needless to say, it’s now on my to-read list (consequently, I signed up on Goodreads just to keep track of them all).
Starters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNUsW1CItY
The other recent one was Under the Never Sky, which I’d previously ignored. After seeing the trailer, I definatly plan on giving the book a chance.
Under the Never Sky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0TnH3GEieE&feature=youtu.be
Would I go out and buy the book on the trailer alone? Probably not. But the ones that catch my interest do get me reading the sample chapters.
And one book trailer just made me happy, because it was advertising book two by showing the ending of book one. If you don’t want spoilers for Matched, you might not want to watch the trailer for Crossed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovn8-Jp3ckM
Anyways, twas a thought I had. Personally I really enjoy these movie-esque book trailers, and whether I self-publish or traditionally publish the novel I’m working on, I’d want to consider the possibility of making a trailer. 🙂
Filed under Book Covers, Writing
This is a photoshoot I did with Jake, intending to create images that would work well for an FBI/CIA/Secret Agent look. While I ended up steering away from that, I did get the image for one of my stronger Honors College Project book covers. Part of the the agreement with Jake was that I’d also do a few potrait ones, so that’s also included. Of course… I had fun transforming one portrait into that of seafolk. 🙂
This was done using my alien bee studio lights.
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157629734197803/show/
Filed under Photo Illustration
This was a photoshoot I did with Christina. The idea was to have a fantasy warrior/mage character, and we went over to Culp Park when the weather turned unexpectedly nice. I was looking to get “video game action poses,” and it turned out to be really fun. I came back with over a thousand pictures to sort through. Got it down to 100 images, then finally twenty favorites. These are the resulting images. 🙂
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157629206245630/show/
Filed under Photo Illustration
Filed under Photo Illustration
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 