Another cover series: Disciple

LBlankenship

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I'm working on the cover for Disciple, Part II. I think that compositionally, the associations are pretty clear -- my question is about the obvious differences. And fresh eyeballs, second opinions are always good.

Here they are together:

Disciple-PartI-cover-350.jpg
Disciple-PartII-coverdraft350.jpg
 

Rachel Udin

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Personally, I like the second cover better, mostly on color... the first one looks really dark.

The only minor nitpick I can see is that the sharp angle on the cloak is leading the eye off the page and not back on the page... but that might be expensive to fix since you aren't the artist.

In order to fix that either angle it *in* so that the eye is lead up or do a slight curve on the cloak.

Picking on it because in my graphic design classes and drawing class I was told to compose so that the eye keeps moving in the drawing plane. When the eye is forced off (for no good reason) the eye stops seeing details. (Just in case you need to know why)

But that's really a nitpick.

And a minor other note, the warm colors are nice, but a minor splash of blue would anchor the color scheme into triadic... unless you're going analogous (so then anchoring it with a saturated orange might be nice)... (I tend to like contrast colors of cool and warm) though that, too, is really a nitpick too.
 

Gale Haut

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It looks like the second book will have a brighter tone, the golden colors look like sunrise/sunset to me, and center on a male protagonist.
 

retlaw

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The proportions of the figures w/each and w/the title seem just a bit off-kilter to me. Also, I would encourage you to create a sub-title other than "Part II".
 

kelloish

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Side by side, the only thing that really bothers me is that the text doesn't line up between the two books. Would it be possible to raise the title text on the first book? I know books you've already sold will not benefit from this, but it will help to make a cohesive look between the two.

Everything else works well for me, I'm liking these a lot.
 

Polenth

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The title placement on the first book bothers me. It feels like you didn't want to obscure the moon/stars, but really, the sky is the least important thing. If you have to de-moon it, you do.
 

LBlankenship

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The title placement on the first book bothers me. It feels like you didn't want to obscure the moon/stars, but really, the sky is the least important thing. If you have to de-moon it, you do.

I agree that the sky isn't usually important, but moving the title up would've revealed the big stripe of not-much-going-on between the character and the monster, and the mountain. So I added the moons, actually, because they were simpler than trying to drop the mountain down.

I'll see what I can do about jiggering the second cover. The sky is set up for the title, in that one. I kind of like having the character provide a border across the bottom.
 

Polenth

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I agree that the sky isn't usually important, but moving the title up would've revealed the big stripe of not-much-going-on between the character and the monster, and the mountain. So I added the moons, actually, because they were simpler than trying to drop the mountain down.

I'll see what I can do about jiggering the second cover. The sky is set up for the title, in that one. I kind of like having the character provide a border across the bottom.

Space isn't a problem. It's about where the space comes, and the current placement splits the cover in two. Having the title at the top with some space underneath would be preferable to having the space at the top.