Cover Design: Some Basics

Tags

cover design, GIMP

So, here are a few things I’ve figured out that are probably applicable to whatever you’re doing. Two things which bear repeating (like the mantra that to be a writer, one must read and write) are:

1) The title must be readable.

2) The thumbnail must look nice.

Ultimately, while you’re trying to entice a reader to pick up your book, you’re also trying to convey useful information, hence you want your title to be easily readable. If you’re having the problem where you’re putting a title over a busy background, you can take the path tool, draw a box around the text (hit ctrl to close the box), copy the path to the selection, and using a new transparent layer, dump a color into the box with the bucket tool. If you want the background to show through, you can make that layer transparent (in the layers dock, right near the top you’ll find a slider for that). Please note: if you anchor down the layer, you will lose the transparency. You need to merge the layers instead.

Here’s some more general advice.

Do it again

It’s fine to use your first draft of a cover if you just want to get the damn thing out the door (I understand that), but you’ll probably want to design at least a couple of different looks. And when you’re first learning how to deal with hair, masks, etc. it’s okay to start from scratch if you get frustrated. At this point, you probably need the practice.

When I find my books are doing nothing, like absolutely nothing, I go a redesign my covers. I love the garden look I have for Love on the 500, but it’s not moving books so it has to go. I’m getting ready to publish Gutter Punk soon, the second book, and I’ll probably try and redesign Love on the 500 to work with that cover. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bummed out though, because I worked hard on that cover.

Don’t be afraid

Ctrl+z as many times as you need. Look up five different tutorials until you get it. I’ve found that fooling around with stuff, I’ve figured out a lot. Using the curves on the path tool can be a little clunky at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. Take a break too if you need it, because it can be frustrating.

The eyedropper is a great tool

In order to keep a cohesive feel, I often use the eyedropper tool. Like, for bokeh dots, I’ll use the highlight color of the woman’s hair. For the garden cover of Love in the 500, I used the same hue of blue and red throughout, and if you write down that number (it will be among the first sliders available) you can make it lighter and darker as needed. Using the same colors will help tie the whole image together. For my Tale of Two Clitties cover, I colorized the background of the bottom image to match the blue from the top image. With the right hue, I just eyeballed the other attributes (saturation and vibrancy).

Creating the feeling of dimension

Using darker hues, smaller sizes, and sliding around the layers so things overlap can create the illusion of dimension.

You can do so much with the copy feature

You can copy things into new layers, new images, as brushes, whatever you want! I’ve had a lot of fun with this feature. I wanted to create a kind of shadow effect with the title of this one story, so I made a brush out of the title, set the transparency to about 50% so I could get this kind of after image effect. I don’t know if it worked that well, but it was fun.

If GIMP gets wonky…

Maybe uninstall some of those brushes. It could just be the version I have (I’m not sure when it was updated) but if I install all of Obsidian Dawn’s brushes, it gets super freaking clunky.

You can do a lot with masks

If you’re working on hair or something, remember coloring something black on the mask will make it transparent, and coloring it white will make it opaque. I use masks for lots of things. When I make a box for text, I like to have texture on it. With a mask, I can make sure I’m just coloring on the box and not all around it. For text, if you want to have a kind of beat up look, you can make it look distressed by adding a quick mask and putting a texture on it.

Some of the things I’m talking about are at an intermediate level as opposed to basic. Understanding them will allow you to do a lot more with your covers. There is an element of trial and error to this. I’m not the best at making covers, but it is something I enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, you’re probably better off hiring a cover artist (advice for that here). If you don’t have the money, make a basic cover, because it’s better than nothing.

Ass Grabber/Love on the 500: Cover Design

Tags

cover design, Erotica, GIMP, gimp brushes, romance

What you are about to see are four very different covers. It’s going to take a minute, so let’s get started!

Here’s my first cover for Ass Grabber, thrown together with Aubrey Watts tutorial close by. I got the image from Romance Novel Covers for $15. It’s okay. It does have ass grabbing.

And we have female hands on a male ass!

This next one is a little more ambitious, and occurred after a rebranding. I wanted to play up the romantic side of the book. I scoured the web for public domain images of buses, and I finally stumbled upon this lovely image of the interior of a hydrogen powered bus in London (thanks Spsmiler). I got the image for $12.50 at colourbox. It’s more ambitious and works well with the title shift (Love on the 500) but it’s not amazing.

As you can see, my GIMP skills are still developing.

So, one more before I get to to the good one. Using the same image from colourbox, and a couple of brushes from Obsidian Dawn (okay, all 3 of the glitter brushes), and the same colors from the bus, I put this together. It’s less tacked together. I started with a transparency in a darker blue, covered it in glitter smoke, worked up another 2 lighter shades, then layered light red glitter II over that. I added the title and author name, and finished off with some dark red glitter swirls. While I’m not in love with this here, it’s definitely something I’ll try again. I’d like to note, I love that I can download all these brushes, and pay as needed, although at $3 each, I might as well buy them.

I’m not in love with it.

So, Obsidian Dawn’s brushes met those lovely bus colors, and gave birth to the image I’ll end up using. I needs works, I won’t argue that, but here I feel like I’m “onto something”. Also, it’s only $3 (foliage swirls brushes). Although, should probably look at the rest, for research, ya know (did research, see post from 2 AM last night).

The background needs work, among other things, but this is the basic idea.

The Vampire’s Gallery Cover Draft

Tags

Erotica, GIMP, Vampire

Here’s a preview of the cover I made for my upcoming novel The Vampire’s Gallery. I’ll probably play with the image a bit more, clean up the text, maybe pick a different color for the bar on the bottom, but that’s the basic design.

The gold lettering is pretty neat huh? I started using a tutorial from the GIMP site, and when I got lost I just Googled “GIMP bumpmap tutorial. After all that work, and it looks weird with the picture of Versailles I was using as a background. I ended up “colorizing” it. It needs cleaned up yet.

(Since writing this, I’ve posted this to Reddit and have been forced to come to the conclusion that I need to follow my own advice and design several covers. This one will still be in the running, cuz I love it. Any comments welcome.)

18+ Content

Since I’ve got you all excited with the cover, here’s a sexy little snippet from it:

He pulled me, and we moved in a flash. Everything settled around me, and we stood in front of a great four poster bed draped in gold. He grabbed my chin and cunt, and as he kissed me, he bit my lip. “I cannot decide which I want more, this,” he growled, licking my lips. “Or this,” he finished, rubbing my twat.

“Both,” I said, leaning into him.

“Such a clever little rat. Take off your pretty necklace first, I don’t want to break it.” He gathered my hair in his hands, and pushed me to sit on his bed. I undid the silver clasp and set it on his nightstand. The whole room was cluttered with art, from primitive masks to over a hundred paintings. There were slave markets and negro princes painted by every major school of western art. With my new eyes, I could make out the details of the brushstrokes. Jamie stood in front of me, and I could sense his approval. He wanted me to see something.

A dizzying array of paintings, their frames crowding each other, all depicting at least one black person, standing in the foreground or lurking in the back. There had to be a reason for it. A great mirror hung on a wall and seeing the room reflected in its surface, I realized he was posing in every painting.

“These all have you in them,” I said and he nodded.

With all the stunning portraits scattered about, I don’t know how I missed him. A pair of  life-sized sculptures stood in a corner, one black, one white. I wanted to touch them, because I felt shy about touching Jamie.

He took a step away from me. “This isn’t a museum, you can touch the art.”

I made my way to them, and he told me, “They’re made of marble and ebony, Grecian and Victorian. They’re also my personal favorites from my collection. You have a good eye.”

I stood in front of the marble Jamie. A youth moved in the limbs of the statue that he no longer had. A gilded wreath of laurel crowned his brow, and he held a lyre. Even rendered in stone, his smile was familiar. I touched the cold lips, and behind me Jamie purred. His hand skimmed up the back of my leg, sending shivers through my skin. I trailed my hand down the statue’s throat, and he moved closer to me, his hand cupping around my thigh, just below my ass. I slipped my hand lower, and his slipped higher. I arched my back, bringing my nipples against the marble and my ass more firmly in his hand.

He fell to his knees behind me, tearing off my underwear. He licked me from my clit to my quivering asshole, back and forth, until my knees trembled. “Jamie, I can’t come if you make me stand here. I’m too afraid I’ll break your beautiful statue.”

Whirling me around, he picked me up by my thighs, resting my cunt over his cock. He held me tighter as I bucked against him. His tongue was in my mouth, and as I sucked it, I felt the strange sensation of my fangs sliding in.

“Go ahead and gnaw on me with your new teeth,” he said.

I bit his lip, and honey coated my tongue. I moaned, suckling his lip. Pressing me to the bed, he pulled my dress over my head. Jamie stripped, revealing the tight cords of his muscles, then he was over me, rubbing his throat to my mouth. “Do you want me to drink from you, master?”

“Yes, and I’m going to impale you with my cock while you take your fill. Bite me.”

I rubbed his throbbing vein with my lips as his dick pushed at my entrance. I sank my teeth into him, and he thrust himself home. His blood poured down like ambrosia in my throat, and I was lost in the sensation of his life flowing into me. His heart faltered, only a beat, but I stopped. There was a fatigue in his limbs, and I didn’t want my master to be weak.

“Take a little more, I’m going to have to feed today regardless. Besides, in a weakened state, I’m still stronger than any vampire here.”

I flicked my tongue over the blood smeared on his neck. “Do you like it when I nibble on you?” I asked, coyly rolling his vessel between my teeth.

In reply, his hips picked up their rhythm and he pushed my leg against my chest, allowing him to pound the back of my pussy. Gripping his hair, I held him to my mouth and bit again. This time I drew long slow mouthfuls, lapping at the wound between breaths.

“Yes, that’s perfect. I want you to come on my cock while I rub your clit.”

“Yes, master.”

“I love hearing you say that with my cock pummeling into you and my blood on your lips.”

His fingers blurred on my clit, and as I threw my head back, blood sprayed from my mouth. My legs pumped in the air as I grunted. I came, waves of pleasure rippling over me as my pussy fluttered on his cock.

“I’m going to fuck your mouth,” he said, and nimbly moved to straddle my face, my twat still pulsing. With one hand I held the base of his cock, the other rubbed my clit, seeking another release. Jamie fucked my face while reaching back to dip his fingers in my hole. I started moaning and undulating my hips.

Sputtering, Jamie took my hair and jammed my face further onto his cock. I opened my mouth wide and smiled as much as I could, choking on his dick. “Oh, keep smiling while you eat my cock.”

I moaned with the joy of knowing I had pleased him, and I felt his cock surge. This time, his cum tasted sweet, and again I licked every drop from him.

I hope you enjoyed it!

The Altar of Deimos: Cover Design

Tags

Erotica, GIMP, Self-publish, Writing

In preparation for this blog hop, I redesigned the cover for The Altar of Deimos. Last day to sign up is the 20th!

For the curious, a summation of my experiences thus far, something I think bears repeating: In regards to Carrie Ann, the woman in charge, the words pleasant and professional spring to mind. She’s got some great advice on her blog. Her emails about the hop are timely (neither too late nor too early), easy to understand. And she responds to questions fast. A+, will hop with again.

But, back to the matter at hand, what I’ve learned thus far.

First piece of advice:
Use an image that speaks to you. I found this picture at Romance Novel Covers, and the way the woman’s hair fanned out over the bed struck me.
Scanning through the shoot, I found this one picture where she has her finger stuck in her mouth all “oh my” and I knew I had the perfect image. I whipped up a quick cover using this great tutorial by Aubrey Watt. Since her hair was what I really loved, I ended up inverting the image and cropping a bit of the bottom.
Which brings us to the second piece of advice—

Never Ever Design One Cover:
Design many. Make sure they pass this test from Popular Soda. My first one, where I had just inverted the image, didn’t. Cropping it to give me more space for the text (which could stand to be larger yet) and changing the color helped:

The third thing you need to do is play with GIMP.

Seriously, it’s just a program. Hit ctrl+z if it gives you shit.

If you’ll notice, the third piece of advice works well with the second piece of advice. These are two attempts of mine. The first image doesn’t work because it’s just two random images crammed together. The second is black and white, which, while artistically appealing, will never have that pop to it. Also, no sexy lady. First image source. Second image source.

It was another striking image by Mikhail Vrubel that I ended up using to create my new cover. I was fooling around with the colorize tool and paint bucket. The background from the watercolor “dripped” down into the model’s hair and on the bed. Once I figured out the right shade, I used a textured paint tool to blend the image of the woman into the watercolor. Fiddling with the text size, I was able to make my title  flow in the available space. Using a guideline, I aligned the text, and bam! I had a snazzy new cover.

I owe an extra thanks to my fiance for lending his eye and his expertise.