Charming the Snake
I promised one of you that I’d post tonight, so I thought I’d post a WIP (work in progress) of my very first chick-lit type of cover, now in print at Amazon
The book is actually more erotic romance than chick lit, but the art direction I was given was for a cartoon cover much like those found on chick lit. Ironic that I’m so into making cartoons, and this is the first time in the year and a half that I’ve been doing book covers that I’ve actually done a cartoon book cover.
Anyway, like most of my cartoons, it began with a scanned pencil sketch…
Next came the color rough. Most chick-lit covers are done as cartoon vector art in solid colors — flat, but cute and whimsical, very stylized. So bear in mind, that’s what I was going for…
But that was just for the front. The back needed art, too, so I sketched those in and laid all the parts out in Photoshop…
Then I imported the layout as a template in Illustrator and traced all the shapes…
I imported the resulting art into InDesign and laid out all the text over it. The background color looked a little off, so I used plain old magenta for the background instead. The final PDF file looked a little bit like this…
Note how I kept the same font for the title text as in the original ebook cover…
And, yeah … I know it’s suggestive. Like I said, it’s an erotic romance.
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9 thoughts on “Charming the Snake”
I notice in the original ebook cover that it’s quite easy to understand how one charms the snake. You just put that thing in the tip of your mouth………………………
Charmer, indeed! XD
Thanks for sharing the process you go thru. It is very cool. One question: I don’t think I understand what the last picture is in relation to rest of the pictures? Did you do it too? I’m just confused about how it fits in.
Yep. I did that last picture, too. It’s the original ebook version of the cover that I did before I did the print version (they wanted a new look for the print version). For the ebook version, I used Poser 5, Bryce 5, and I painted the hair and clothes in Photoshop. Someday, I’ll show my process for that, too. 😉
That’s brilliant! You can so write a book on PS tips.
Btw, I am excited to finish the story I am writing for your b/w toons. 🙂
Charming the Snake? Like you really need a whole book for that one…
I am butting in, a complete not able to do anything but write stories person to say that this is one fabulous cover! I am a little biased, since it is my book. I loved both covers but this cover is perfect for print, as it grabs your eye. I can’t tell you how gorgeous it looks. And it was fascinating to look at the process and see how you did it:)
Thanks, Mel! 😀
Thanks, April, for sharing how you did the Chick Lit type cover for Amazon. I understand what you say about MJD’s “vampire” covers. It’s the look I would like to “imitate” on my next contemporary book with LSB.
I’m a “normal” artist — and I sell my watercolors — so I can draw. 🙂
What I will probably do is to draw and paint the cover (OK with flat jar acrylics) (Maybe use colored paper as a background) and then scan in the cover in Digital Imagining and add the title, etc.
It’s probably a crazy way to do it, but I’m not that knowledgeable about the drawing and illustrating software (as you well know.)
Thanks for in insigt. I really appreciated it.
Blaise
I have to say that I really like the earlier version. very retro and reminded me of a lot of the book covers from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Its kind of funny to just look at the images and not read the text. I did that at first and was it a BIG surprise to see that last image! LOL
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