Saturday, February 19, 2011

Fun with cover designs

A few days ago Shallee McArthur posted about how she likes making her own covers for her WIPs. It never occurred to me to do that before, but as soon as I saw them I had to make my own.


I had a lot of fun making these, but of course wasted a lot of time.

Do you ever make your own covers? What else do you do relating to your WIP which is not actually writing?

23 comments:

  1. ...neat idea. And out of curiosity, that young lady sure resembles Ms. Alicia from "The Crush," and many more:) An eye-catching choice.

    EL

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  2. Cool covers! I've never even thought about doing this. It sounds like fun. Hello from a fellow Crusader.

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  3. I like the 'Blood Legacy' design! How did you do that?
    I did my own cover for Mystery in Morocco but never completed it. My abilities on the computer are next to non-existent. This sort of thing takes up far too much of my precious time :)
    The other thing I did yesterday was to imagine my WiP as a film and started working on a cast list :D

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  4. I've messed around quickly with covers, but I've never actually made an official one. I love both of your covers, So Far to Fail is an awesome title! I almost made a soundtrack for my novel that I would write to. I looked at tons of songs and everything. Then I realized I can write everything to music except my novel. :D Yeah, that was a fail.

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  5. I love the one for Blood Legacy. She looks like she can kick serious butt!

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  6. Oh wow, seriously wow, those are both great. The girl/dragon one is such a cool graphic! I'm way impressed. The other one has a serious hottie in it, I may have zoom in for a closeup :)

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  7. You really did great with those! I've tried to do one of my own, but...I'm not a very visual person. I just couldn't get it how I imagined it.

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  8. I LOVE your covers. Wow. They are amazing, especially the one for Blood Legacy!

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  9. Ooh, I love the Blood Legacy one! I love making covers, SO much fun, I put a few up on my blog a few days ago too :)

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  10. They look awesome! Yeah, I make covers and pretend that they're mine. Hehe. I know some girls from Inkpop (that site run by HarperCollins) even make book trailers for fun! And some of them are really good.

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  11. Elliot, yep sure is Alicia Silverstone :). I googled my MCs hair colour and that was the best pic that came up.

    Shelley, nice to meet you :)

    Thanks Prue! I used Photoshop. I love messing around in Photoshop. I'm no expert but I've learnt a few tricks as a novice. You should check out www.gfxartist.com. People do amazing things.

    Madeline, So Far to Fall came to me as I started that WIP. It's weird because it's taken me so long to think of a name for Blood Legacy, and I'm still not happy with it.

    K, I'm glad you think that. The MC in Blood Legacy is definitely a fighter.

    Thanks Margo, the hottie is Ben Barnes. My current obsession, as you can probably tell from previous posts.

    JEFritz, that's ok. One day when you get it published you'll have an amazing cover artist who designs a cover you love ;).

    Thanks Golden Eagle. Blood Legacy is my fave too. It came out way better than I expected.

    Girl Friday, I checked out your covers. Very cool. But definitely a bad procrastination tool. Thanks for the link to that editor site too.

    Thanks Ellen. Not sure I have the skills to make a book trailer. Maybe I'll try that down the track.

    Thanks for your comments everyone.

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  12. What fun designs! It's a fun procrastination tool, isn't it. :)

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  13. Hello fellow crusader! These covers are great and yes, hours have gone by doing the same. I've used canstockphoto.com for my mock covers.

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  14. Wow! Fantastic covers! Well done.

    I recently decided to make some covers for a couple of mine - Bolter Baron and Tril Tales. It was, indeed, time consuming, but very rewarding.

    It's good to meet you, fellow crusader. Although we're not in the same group, we both write fantasy.

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  15. I made a cover for my novel, but nothing serious like that. Very minimal. What program did you use to make your covers?

    <3 Gina Blechman (fellow crusader)

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  16. I have tried, but they never look as professional as yours! How do you make them? They look awesome!

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  17. Your covers are great! I designed the covers of my two published devotionals with a smidge of help from a graphic designer buddy. It's fun! I'm a crusader checking in.

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  18. They are beautiful. If I knew how, I'd probably try to do my own designs. But for now I guess I will have cover envy. lol I'm a fellow crusader and follower. I think that we are also in the same group. I look forward to more posts and getting to know you. Best wishes.

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  19. Thanks Shallee. Yes, it's a dangerous time suck.

    Hi Margo, nice to meet you. It seems there's a lot of writers who enjoy doing this.

    Thanks Tony. It's nice to meet another crusader and fantasy writer :).

    Gina & J.C., I used photoshop, but if you don't have it there are freeware programs you can use. I'm not sure what they are but if you check out the link to Shallee's blog in this post she talks about the program she used.

    Thanks Zan Marie. That's cool that you got to design your own published covers.

    Hi Regina, nice to meet another group member :). Don't worry if you're not sure how to make them. It's probably best that way. It's a time suck!

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  20. These are great covers, and such an awesome idea! Hehe... something ELSE to distract me ;)

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  21. Those ARE great covers! And cool! I wanna try!

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  22. Glad you like them, Alison. I had a lot of fun making them :)

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  23. Yes beware it is a huge distraction! Have fun though :)

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