Sunday, July 24, 2016

Fantasy-isque: Radient = Radiant

Scarlet Dusk. I was going to put a subtitle: "After a long storm is a radient sunset" meaning that there is always light at the end of a dark tunnel, or more like, when you go through something really terrible, you shouldn't lose hope because something good is waiting for you at the end. I didn't put the subtitle for two reasons; one, I had no space and two, it made the whole cover look crammed and messy and too complicated.

I'd like to explain a little about the lines and squares in the middle. Just a little. That design is purely experiment. It's just me seeing if it'll look good. I have done anything like that but I did want to put something in there because it looked like something was missing.

And the font is inspired by "Owl City" font. If you listen to his music on OwlCityVEVO on YouTube, he often uses this very simple font with spaces between the letters and it seems very fantasy-like somehow. Futuristic fantasy but not scifi.

The background picture is a pic from my Grandfather, my Grampy. He sent me, er, rather the whole rest of the family, pictures of autumn in his area. Instead of toning down the colors and making it pastel, I decided to do the exact opposite of what I normally do, brighten it. Yes, I was experimenting.

OMG! I just found out I spelled "radient" wrong it's "radiant". Well, let's just say it is a made-up word that I made and it means the same thing. Otherwise I'm in a pickle cuz I made a CD cover version, too.

Background photo is an original photo.

Radient and radiant mean the same thing, okay? OKAY? Yes, let's leave it at that.


On to the next cover!

This cover is that idea of "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain" from The Wizard of Oz. I was experimenting with the overlay effect and found that the butterfly-white-overlay effect could do amazing see-through things when put on the black silhouette. I was going to go legal with this but decided that, aw heck with it! I'm going to go all non-legal this whole entire cover.

I wanted to give this cover some kind of playful, yet mysterious vibe. There is no specific idea behind the cover just something to do with the person behind the curtain and the girl in the pic maybe sees something or gets involved in some kind of mysterious fantasy-like incident. I tried to imagine this cover as a real cover and wanted to make it like something I would pick up if I saw this in a bookstore.



The ocean and sky photo is an original photo.

This isn't really a cover, meaning that it's not cover size, but I did want to share it here. I once had this crazy epic dream and if you go HERE it's Chapter 7, if you're interested in reading it, it's a Dream Fiction series. The moon looked almost like it does in the pic. Really, it was SUCH an epic dream I went over and over with it in my head so I wouldn't forget it by the time I had time to write it up.


Since we're keeping with the fantasy vibe, here's another one.

Title: From Fantasy to Reality

This is a design, NOT a cover. But nonetheless, it is still something I made. Okay, so the background ocean is a pic I got from a friend and idk if it's legal or not. It might not be. But everything else on the pic is legal. So, I was experimenting again. I had this door png that I really wanted to use so I put it on the seashore of the original ocean pic.

The city in the door is supposed to show another reality or another world. When I was making it I put the same overlay city (legal png) slightly sliding it left or right to make it look all different. I pasted it on as an image and erased the parts I didn't want (you can do that crazy good stuff on PicMonkey free). The door, the ocean pic, the city png are all layered twice and the door is layered in a way to try to make it look 3D. Hope I did a good job?

I also used PicMonkey space effect to give the sky a fantasy feel and again, like "Scarlet Dusk", I did the opposite of what I normally do, I made it brighter instead of pastel/washed.

The idea behind the design is that, you are in paradise but then you must open the door to return to reality again. Reality is the city, paradise is the beach and the ocean. And the door is the only thing connecting you and reality.



The End :P

Hope you're all having a great summer. And for those doing CampNaNoWriMo, you can do it, you're almost there! :D

Happy Writing! :D