Stephanie Bibb's Blog, page 62

Behind the Scenes – Moth and Rust

Another cover for Melange Books.

Oiy, this one was a doozy. I finally got a chance to play with anthropomorphic characters again, and these aren’t your usual species… here we have a spiny anteater and an armadillo. Let’s just say I got to really play with character creation and setting creation. This one took a bunch of stock photos to complete, and this is an example of where it’s helpful to have a stock subscription to be able to pick up everything at a lower cost. Melange Books had the stoc...

Formatting Print Books – and Behind the Scenes – The Tune of Murder

This is a cover I did for a local author who wanted to self-publish. Initially, she was looking for formatting of the print edition (since she had the kindle version ready), and since I’ve had some experience with formatting books for my own purposes, I agreed to the job. I had a lot of fun examining other books in the genre to try to emulate the style of formatting as best I could, and it’s something I recommend doing if you plan to format your own book. Pay attention to how chapter headings...

Behind the Scenes – Screw the Devil’s Daiquiri

This is a cover for Melange Books.

In this case, the author wanted an illustrated cover to fit with the style of story he’d written. While I primarily deal with photomanipulation, I decided to give it a try. My first couple attempts ended up looking too cartoonish (which the story is not), so I finally decided to go with a heavily altered photomanipulation using Photoshop CS6. That is… the table is illustrated, the devil tail is illustrated, and the daiquiri was created by using a combination...

Behind the Scenes – Take Back the Memory

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, I actually strayed a bit from the art form, but I based the cover proof on the information that was provided. Since the book was described as women’s fiction, I researched a few recent covers in the genre and tried to apply the coloration and theme of those types of covers to this one, including hinting at the location of some of the scenes in a washed out image below the text (dividing the cover by the scene and character seems to be one fair...

Behind the Scenes – Red Sun Over Panama

This is a cover for Melange Books.

The novel is an espionage/mystery novel with a historical setting, and based on the art form, I pictured a setting or rising sun over the ocean with the WWII Japanese flag behind it. I had a few questions based on what I’d read onthe form, though, so I sent an email to the author before creating anything to clarify a few points in the story. I’d thought about having some sort of era based aircraft in the background, but I wasn’t sure what would be appropriate...

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-tex...

Behind the Scenes – Murder In Her Dreams

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, we wanted a dream-like feel to accompany the idea of the story, in which the main character is having symbolic dreams involving a black rabbit attacking a man. While we stuck with the initial positioning and texturing I created, my first proof used a contrasty red and yellow theme. For the final, we decided to tone it down to purple and blue and black to give it a more dream-like feel.

This is is the end result:

Stock photos from Dreamstime:

http...

Behind the Scenes – Emma and the Cutting Horse

This is a cover for Melange Books.

For this cover, the author had already received permission to use a silhouette image from the National Cutting Horse Association, so I used that as my starting point before creating the rest of the cover. In this case, I put more emphasis on the title and surroundings (while I initially had a stable in the background, I switched the image to an arena per the suggestion of the author). Since the book was meant for younger readers, I looked for a font that had...

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 or...

Behind the Scenes – Seducing Sir Gwain

This is a cover for Melange Books.

I’m really pleased with the overall effect of this cover. Given that my first couple attempts at this cover were… less than fruitful… I had a little more success when the publisher suggested I try looking at Romance Novel Covers for a stock model. (http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/) Since the stock site specializes in romance, it was a bit easier to find a couple t fit the description of the cover. Then I did my usual search through current popular covers in...