Okay, after looking at the suggestions here and speaking with my sister-in-law who has published about 40 books so far I started working on a new book cover. So I have a new title, new font and a whole new image. I had fun learning a whole bunch of new things in Photoshop. Thank you YOUTUBE!
The most valuable piece of advice given to me was to look at the finished product zoomed out to the 1 inch size that you will see on Amazon.com when shopping and make sure you can read the title, the authors name and that you can make out that there is a big spaceship on the cover. I was told to stop trying to make a photo-realistic piece of art as that's not what you're trying to achieve. What you're trying to do is get potential buyers to click on your book and check it out and having the ship stand out on the cover will do that. Before showing this WIP to my sister-in-law I had the planet throwing red light on the carrier as it would in real life, but when zoomed out to 1 inch the carrier blended into the planet and virtually disappeared. It goes against everything I've learned about rendering an image for art, but I am happy with how the ship stands out now when you zoom out to 1 inch. It doesn't look as realistic as I normally like, but...
ahhh blue engine exhausts much better - prefer the title, nice clean look - cover would not put me off reading the book (amateur covers do make me think twice on amazon) - artistically i preferred the last background but i agree this works better when small thumbnail sized (dont get me wrong this planet looks cool, well hot actually but liked the spacey feel of the last one) - make sure to post a link when you get it up on amazon - in need of a new sci fi series to read!
Looking great, Sean. It sounds like you got some valuable advice. Photo realism is definitely not a must or even a consideration on book covers. You just want something eye catching. To use fishing terminology, the cover art is a lure. It's there to get the shopper's eye. The written description is what reels them in. However, without that lure, they won't read the description. The size of the image definitely matters. If I'm looking at books on my Kindle Fire, that cover will be tiny. So, your use of big, bold lettering is definitely a good call.
Thanks Knight26! Yeah I tried putting some fighters both on the deck and flying around it, but due to scale they look like they are the size of mosquitos and barely show up.
Okay, so I spent most of today tweaking the cover.
I added some glows, adjusted the lighting, upped the specular level on the carrier, upped the render quality and I added some fighters both on the deck and in the air.
The fighters still look like mosquitos, but they add a little detail.
Still working on the engine trails.
In the book the fighters are F-114 Tomcats that can fly both inside and outside an atmosphere.
Since I love the F-14 Tomcat and I had a model I built years ago, I just used it.
LOL!
Going to keep tweaking it tomorrow.
Need to add some fighters landing in the rear bay.
This morning I added 3 fighters landing in the rear bay which you can barely see and I blurred out the fighters exhaust trails so they weren't so crisp. I'm going to call this thing finished otherwise I will just keep going and going.
So I have a bunch of things that I don't like about my battle carrier and I have a bunch of details I want to add. My book is with my beta readers and I am taking an e-book marketing course right now so I have some time to work on this thing. I started by adding some steering thrusters to the bow of the ship. This is the first design that popped into my head. Now that they're built I don't know if I like them or not. What do you think?
I'm assuming those thrusters are rotating, hence having them out on arms like that. If not, why not just lateral thrusters like you see on big ships now?
Right now, as it is you've hung a giant target out there with lower level of coverage, and due to it's positioning will create field of fire blind spots.
Yeah they were rotating, but I already abandoned those thrusters and the wings. I am working on a few different ideas that have them tucked into the hull. Thanks.
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The most valuable piece of advice given to me was to look at the finished product zoomed out to the 1 inch size that you will see on Amazon.com when shopping and make sure you can read the title, the authors name and that you can make out that there is a big spaceship on the cover. I was told to stop trying to make a photo-realistic piece of art as that's not what you're trying to achieve. What you're trying to do is get potential buyers to click on your book and check it out and having the ship stand out on the cover will do that. Before showing this WIP to my sister-in-law I had the planet throwing red light on the carrier as it would in real life, but when zoomed out to 1 inch the carrier blended into the planet and virtually disappeared. It goes against everything I've learned about rendering an image for art, but I am happy with how the ship stands out now when you zoom out to 1 inch. It doesn't look as realistic as I normally like, but...
I added some glows, adjusted the lighting, upped the specular level on the carrier, upped the render quality and I added some fighters both on the deck and in the air.
The fighters still look like mosquitos, but they add a little detail.
Still working on the engine trails.
In the book the fighters are F-114 Tomcats that can fly both inside and outside an atmosphere.
Since I love the F-14 Tomcat and I had a model I built years ago, I just used it.
LOL!
Going to keep tweaking it tomorrow.
Need to add some fighters landing in the rear bay.
test 1.jpg
test 2.jpg
test 3.jpg
Right now, as it is you've hung a giant target out there with lower level of coverage, and due to it's positioning will create field of fire blind spots.
http://www.madkoifish.rr.nu/
Just look under tutorials in the menu
Thanks for the link dude!