Cover Design

[jaxx6166]

Now -that- is a cover. I love the texture. What is it, distressed leather?

I really want to write a western twist story. But, I'm not well read enough in the genre to take a stab at it. Something steampunkish would be awesome. But my TBR pile and TBW pile are getting way too long...

How do you shrink them down to 150px?

[Dusty Bottoms]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Now -that- is a cover. I love the texture. What is it, distressed leather?

I really want to write a western twist story. But, I'm not well read enough in the genre to take a stab at it. Something steampunkish would be awesome. But my TBR pile and TBW pile are getting way too long...

How do you shrink them down to 150px?

It's actually a mixture of old paper textures sourced from deviantart and other places with different blends:




To resize go to Image > Scale Image (remember to File > Save a Copy and not File > Save) Once you've resized save the copy out then do a quick Undo so you don't lose your original size mistakenly (Like I've done more than once )

Want to write a western, read one of each of these Max Brand, Louis Lamour, Elmore Leonard and then watch Deadwood TV series...the rest is just having fun

EDIT: I've sent you a PM with my private contact details. If you need any help on covers or just to bounce around ideas, you can reach me there in the coming weeks (I don't have the time or the inclination to be around here at the moment)

EDIT 2: If you want any of the original gimp XCF's to play around with and use in your own designs, just drop me a line at the email I sent and I'll whisk them over to you.

[zelda_pinwheel]

do you know bittbox ? probably yes but just in case i thought i'd mention it. i LOVE that guy ; he posts all kinds of amazing ultra-high res textures you can download for free, and makes crazy photoshop and illustrator brushes and tutorials as well. i have learned a lot just wandering around his site and gotten some unbelievable ressources too. everybody should have his site bookmarked. oh, and he makes fonts too.

seriously, the guy is awesome.

[jaxx6166]

Never heard of him before today. Zelda you're my hero. You've given me yet another thing to waste precious writing time on :-)

Karma cookies to you!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Never heard of him before today. Zelda you're my hero. You've given me yet another thing to waste precious writing time on :-)

Karma cookies to you!

heheh, glad to pass along the info. i should warn you though, don't go to that site unless you've got several hours free...

[jaxx6166]

Here's the newest one. I gave up on the Wilfrey books for JuNo. The intricacies made my brain hurt. I need something quick easy and fun for JuNo. So, enter Blood Moon. My weird western.

Jake Dollop is a man down on his luck. The rumor of gold in Diablo Hill is too good to pass up. But, the mountain holds a secret. A secret that the people of Apex Village died for. A secret that could change the world...

[jaxx6166]

My buddy's designing a cover for his work right now. Here's his rough...The issue I have is there's no blending between the two images. Any idea how to fix this?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

My buddy's designing a cover for his work right now. Here's his rough...The issue I have is there's no blending between the two images. Any idea how to fix this?

Really hard to do (at least beyond my meagre thrown together skills). I'd go for a full page on the images and break them down the centre with a sword splitting the image. I'll see if I can do a mockup.

[jaxx6166]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Really hard to do (at least beyond my meagre thrown together skills). I'd go for a full page on the images and break them down the centre with a sword splitting the image. I'll see if I can do a mockup.

That'd be great. I've cut them in half and hit every filter I can think of. I'd suggested originally that he beak them up with a jagged edge, but can't figure out how to do that. Sword sounds like it could work.

[Moejoe]

This is extremely rough (rougher than an arse made out of sandpaper) but it should give you something to mess around with, and if you need the sword image from this to use, I have the link to the SXU page (I used these swords before, they're quite cool).

EDIT: Source for the sword image. http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=324062

[jaxx6166]

Heres a quick mockup on my end..

sent your mockup to my buddy. He's loving the different take on what he came up with. I like the full page. And the sword. Trying to mess with it to get a similar effect, did you hit it with that cloth filter

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Heres a quick mockup on my end..

sent your mockup to my buddy. He's loving the different take on what he came up with. I like the full page. And the sword. Trying to mess with it to get a similar effect, did you hit it with that cloth filter

No filters. Just duplicated the sword about four times or so and used a burn blend on the topmost sword. I dropped a paper texture over the top as well and 'overlay' on the blend.

[capidamonte]

Is this sort of what you were originally looking for?

[jaxx6166]

Originally Posted by capidamonte

Is this sort of what you were originally looking for?

Holy crap yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're my new hero. How did you manage?

[jaxx6166]

Blood Moon has a new name and a new cover. I still can't figure out this text from paths thing though.