2DSpiral War Cover Artwork

Knight26

Since I now have, almost, all the elements for the cover ready I am going to start putting it all together.
Elements will/may include:
('3x Splicer 1000s (modeling and textures complete, scene render TBD)
('3x Characters (Line drawing completed by Alex Villareal, I will then digitally paint them in PS)
('1x asteroid based o'neil cylinder academy/colony (modelling in progress, may or may not include)
Background (I am debating using a public domain image, as in the mock up or digitally painting my own)
Text (Completed, my redesign and refine)

Here are the two current mockups, the sizing and positions of the characters and other elements may change and I appreciate any feedback.



I kind of prefer the characters being larger but then a lot of Alex's work gets obscured/lost, hmmm.

Here are the Characters individually. This will be my first time digitally coloring/painting characters in a long time so I will appreaciate any helpful feedback.

Alex designed Arion's armor, and I like it, though his is bulkier then it would be on other characters.

Marda's flight suit is my design and Alex brought it to life fantastically, too bad we couldn't work the helmet in though.

Blazer's duty uniform was a collaboration with Alex working off my description and poor sketches, but I like it alot.

spacefighter

i prefer the first image as it gives a better view of the ships in the background. i would suggest that as you have done many different models you show off a few different types in the image rather than just the same design repeated. the characters look good but i suggest placing them so the man in the cool armour has more of his armour visible. the background is nice though you may want to try an image with greater variation across it, rather than the centre of a galaxy try a view from the outer edge looking across the disc at an angle. font is a bit hard to read. just to ask is this for a book, some online thing, a personal project, a film?

Knight26

The cover is for the book I wrote, which is currently being editted. I will likely e-pub it myself, hence why I am making the cover. As for the fighters on the cover, those are the fighters that they will be flying this book, so putting in a bunch of different ones doesn't make as much sense. I could add some others to the background, but don't want to make the cover too busy. Angling the galaxy sounds like a good idea, anyone know any good tutorials for drawing a spiral galaxy?

Knight26

First pass on Blazer and Marda's color scheme. Will work on shading and highlighting next to try and make them not look so comic bookish.

evil_genius_180

That's some really nice work. Personally, prefer the one with the closer look at the characters, even though it does obscure the ships a bit. Nice work so far with the coloring. I tried that years ago (roundabouts 1998-99, I think) and it didn't go anywhere near as well as what you've got so far.

spacefighter

Knight26 wrote: »

As for the fighters on the cover, those are the fighters that they will be flying this book, so putting in a bunch of different ones doesn't make as much sense.

what about enemy craft they will be fighting against, not in formation with them obviously but elsewhere removing just one of the
slicer 1000 (this is the type isn't it??) fighters would give enough space to add in another type of craft without cluttering the cover.

seen your character illustrations now they are coloured, very cool.

Knight26

Arion, base color:


FYI the mustard yellow scheme is because the characters are cadets in this book.
@EG: Thanks, I am still learning as I go a bit here so I don't expect pro quality results, so long as they look good you know?
@SF: I may consider putting something in the background, right now I am thinking the academy itself with maybe an enemy sip near it. As for any other craft, maybe the back cover can get a few, but I don't want to crowd a clutter up the front cover, if it's too busy it may detract people.

Schimpfy

I like this a lot. The characters' coloring is looking very nice. You know; realistically, a bright color like that on a flight suit made for space pilots makes a lot of sense. Say after some big battle you've got ejected pilots spread over a pretty big area. The loud color definitely makes sense from a rescue point of view.:)

Forgot to point out a couple of other things...

With the yellow of your craft and the yellow of the armor/flight suits the cover may lean toward being almost obnoxious. What if you were to keep them as smaller silhouettes more in the background? I think it would balance it out more, especially if the ships were above the title. I, too, would suggest a different font. Something like Bank Gothic maybe? Anywho, just some ideas for ya.

Knight26

Thanks for the comments Juvat, I will take your suggestions into consideration. Maybe have the characters half in shadow? Hmm...

Anyway here is the first pass on Blazer's shadowing. I like how the body is coming out, but the face can definitely use some work, especially the highlighting.

Thoughts?

Schimpfy

Definitely improving. :thumb:

Knight26

ANother quick update:

I experimented a bit with textures on the clothes, skin and hair then toned down the original line art, trying to make it look more like a painting, not entirely sold on it. It also really highlights the the areas that the paint did not cover, but I can easily correct that. I will have to watch some more tutorials on where to go next.

Knight26

Shaded Marda and Arion, need to make anotger pass at Marda's face.

Knight26

Ok, I placed the characters into a refreshed cover mock-up, thoughts? Having them all together makes me think that Marda is too pale right now.

alonzo11208

Looking really good!

However, theres a lot of colour clashing going on with that yellow/orange. And the text is a bit difficult to read at the buttom since theres little contrast between those bright values.

Perhaps changing the colour of the clothes or the craft? From what Im gathering, the characters are to be the main focus, so you'll want our eyes to automatically go to them, then flow to whats going on in the background.

Knight26

A whole new mockup for you. I have taken the advice of some on here and my wife to come up with this version.
The background is all my creation now, I followed a tutorial on how to draw a spiral galaxy.
I also resized and repositioned the title, subtitle, and my name, and the characters.
Finally I darkened the fighter/trainers, I still plan to render them again later to create their final image.

Thoughts?
FYI:
Characters: hand drawn and inked by Alex Vilareal, colored in photoshop by myself
Text: Created in MS Visio
Splicer-1000 Dagger Fighter/Trainers: Modelled and rendered in AutoCAD
Galaxy Background: Photoshop
Image Composition: MS Powerpoint

alonzo11208

I personally think, this is a large improvement. The shifting of the title/subtitle/name makes it much easier to read.

The darkening of the fighters, really does less their focus/attraction of attention and makes the characters really pop and stand out. Im really worrisome about all that yellow lol but I could just be picky >.<

Also, becare with that mass of white in the middle. It actually kinda of works since, it draws your eyes to the character faces, but you dont want it to blend in too much if that makes sense.

Overall looking good Knight, and Im totally totally loving those character drawings.

Coolhand

Other than space, is anything *not* yellow in the future?;)

nice work on the character art.

Knight26

Well the characters are in cadet mustard yellow, so that follows what is happening in the book. In regards to the fighters, I am considering changing a single line in the book to say that the trainers are not a uniform color, or that they might just have yellow markings, so that means I can change their colors easier.

Maybe something like: Over half the fighters looked like they were old fleet relics and did not wear the mustard yellow of the dedicated trainers. As Blazer walked by one such craft, he saw that the academy sigil was only hastily plastered over the old squadron insignia.

Of course that brings up a new sticking point, the fighters have no markings, I will have to correct that, and come up with an academy logo as well.
Any votes on new colors for the fighters? Also I am debating making the text more bold in appearance and maybe changing the color of it as well, any thoughts?

Schimpfy

There's nothing wrong with making the fighters yellow...at least dedicated trainers. I've personally always been a fan of the grey/blue scheme a lot of Russian fighters use.

alonzo11208

I was going to suggest that maybe one of the other (trainers or uniforms were) were a night shade of blue with some yellow markings. This would be a compliment to each other, and if pulled off could add a nice hierarchy to the picture. Only thing, is if you do that, you may have to revise the color of the words...

Knight26

No rest for the wicked I assembled and rendered the fighters in the following scene and color scheme. ACAD started giving me issues though but I think it came out well overall. I wil need to do at least three or four more renders after I finish their markings to make the final image.


I then composited them into the cover art to confirm size, position and color, thoughts?


There is also a change to one character, who can spot it first?

colbmista

patch on the blond dude

spacefighter

Knight26 wrote: »

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new fighter colour scheme is cool and a great improvement on the previous one. good choice to alter the angle of the galaxy, though one that looks more like hubble photographs of a galaxy could be better. text still hard to read, and an enemy fighter could be dropped in behind the leftward end of the title. overral nice.

evil_genius_180

This is coming along really nicely. The shading you've done on the characters looks good. The new color scheme on the fighters is really cool, but it kind of blends in with the galaxy background, whereas the more yellow scheme did not. I think that the new color scheme would look better against your original background.

Knight26

Sounds like we have some contrast issues, the fighters are now blending in too much with the background, but I can adjust the contrast there without too much difficulty, but now the words are hard to read? Is it the color, are they blending in too much, or the text itself?

As for the background, I can make adjustments to it as well, but want everything in this to be unique and something I created and not use even any public doman imagery, so no hubble pictures.

@SF, quit begging for an enemy fighter, if I decide to do so I will. I also still have a back cover to do.

Coolhand

its not really faint and gaseous, nebulous enough... and the brightness yes, is too much compared to the toned down ships.

maybe make the galaxy more like this in brightness/hue/intensity. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/18/article-2016050-0D0EA9E100000578-960_964x580.jpg

you can always experiment by dropping images like this in, just to give you a guide.

Knight26

Thanks Coolhand, it was my first attempt at a galaxy, and it maybe it did come out a bit too thick. I wil try again and see if I can come up with something more realistic

evil_genius_180

The text is good for me. The outlines and drop shadows help a lot.

Knight26

How is the positioning of the characters? My wife commented that Marda kind of get's lost against Arion's bulk.

evil_genius_180

Now that you mention it, she kind of does.

Knight26

I just realized, she is getting lost in him because she is not casting a shadow on him currently, that will be fixed later