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

What Really Happened: "Little Red Riding Hood"

 

In our modern world, Little Red Riding Hood, Ella, grows up to be a troubled teen who lives alone in her grandmother's house. One day a couple comes by and asks to spend the night. She gives them refuge from the dangerous forest but their love angers her and she kills them because she wanted them to stop.

The couple's parents eventually find the house and Ella is arrested. The bodies are found in the living room and Ella's clothes are stained with blood. But even though she is a teen, her mind is that of a little girl. Living in a secluded area all her life and with only her grandmother to keep her company, Ella' innocence saves her from the death penalty. She has no relatives and her parents had given her to her grandmother the day after they visited her grandmother. Ella was a little girl then and she made up the story that the Big Bad Wolf had eaten her parents when in fact they had just left her to her grandmother's care because they didn't want to take care of a child anymore. Her grandmother didn't really care for her and only told her dark fairytales and praised her when little Ella killed a bird "for fun". Ella grew up to be a troubled, innocent, twisted girl.

But there is something darker in Ella's childhood. Ella was not born in the hospital. She was born at home during a fire. As her mother lay outside and Ella's wail of life pierced the area, the house crashed to the ground, turning to ashes.

She was named "Ella" after "Cinderella" who always had ashes on her face.

So she became known as the girl born out of the ashes.

Celebrating 200 posts for World Problems and Randomness

For those of you who don't know, "World Problems and Randomness" is my other blog, or rather, my main blog. Since it has reached, or will reach 200 posts, I'm gonna post some legal designs here as celebration. These aren't covers, just designs.

I would like to thank, The One and Only for making the awesome legal logo :) Now I don't have to worry about someone stealing my stuff :)

Let me just say, I really like how the ripples in the back turned out. And how matching the font is and the cool thing going on with the flower petals. I know it's not something you do, you know, praise your own covers but, hey, why not?
We're celebrating 200 posts so, yeah.

So this title suddenly popped into my head; "Gamma Rays & Helium" and I knew exactly what I wanted on the blue-tile-diamond background. I also almost immediately after making the cover, came up with the subtitle, "the Ultimate Collection of Fictional Memories". Idk why but it HAD TO BE "Gamma Rays & Helium". Talk about randomness, eh? :P

Then I thought I'd play around with the blue-tile-diamond background. Some how this turned out to be some kind of Roman Empire / Gladiator thing. The stars on the "I"s, I did them myself :) After I made this one, I immediately felt that this should be a two-part.

So here's the sequel.

I looked up the synonym for "pint" and came up with "quart". The star sequence thing on the bottom might have taken me up to forty-min to create and get just right. I tried to make it look a little sparkly on the trophy-like pitcher thing. I wanted to do something fancy with the letters but...well, there are no "I"s as you can see. I had to settle with adding something to the bottom which looked a little lonely without anything.

And then I did this one just a few minutes ago. Well, by the time you read this centuries might have passed by but anyway. The Idea Behind the Cover (this one has an Idea), is a little girl named Alexia who joins her local ballet community but she struggles because she feels like "Alex", a little boy, inside. She wants to be a little boy and does a lot of "boy" roles for plays because she is already quite boyish. But then, gender restrictions start to hit her as teachers don't really know what to do with her because she doesn't want to be a girl anymore but she LOOKS like a girl... Well, basically a story of a eleven-year-old transgender child that battles with the restrictions of her small community. Will she, or he, be accepted for who they are at the end?

The scenery is actually,

this one, turned to the side. Can you see it? :P


So that's all of them!

Happy Writing Figs, and have a nice day everyone else! :D

(Go to World Problems and Randomness and check out post No. 200! :D )

ColorMeCovers!

In my group "Covermakers Unite" on Figment, I started a challenge for practice.

It's the ColorMeCovers Challenge :)

Here are my ColorMeCovers. The awesome (and legal) logo was made by The One and Only from the Randomly Wonderful World of Fig :)

 

 

Yay :D Rainbow!

All of these are legal covers and copyrighted.

Happy Writing and Creating! :D

Premade Covers 3

Imagine a group of elementary school girls who like hats and decide to make their very own club, "The Hat Club". What they do there and what drama happens is all up to the writer. The author name is in a font called "Mountains of Christmas". Not the right season? But it's the right look, isn't it? The playful sort of feel.

This one, I wanted to have a little fun with a circular kind of title space. I used "Almost like the blues" for the title and "Fountain Avenue" for the author name. The picture itself has many many color effects on it.

Here's the original pic I used for "One Way Only" so you can see the difference. Quite a change, isn't it? :)

So I found this really lovely picture of a daisy and I wanted to do something with it. Something simple. I looked up the synonym for "wallflower" and came back with words that meant "watcher" or "observe", hence, "The Observer". Both title and author name are the same font. It is a new font I downloaded called "WIRED saj" and it is AWESOME! :D  For a story, I would aim for a bit of a steampunk kind of thing. The frame, in case you wondered, was not on the original...

Okay, this is the original. I know, not so different but I did like the original look and I wanted to keep it as best as I could. I did change the hue a teeny bit though.

Well, that's all folks :D

Happy Writing!

Premade Covers 2

So I found these very lovely legal pics (one of a girl and the other of a close-up violet) and decided they were destined to go together. One of the flower meanings for a violet is "daydreams". I used "Vladimir Script" for the title and "Poor Richard" for the Author Name. Finally, a bit of Tranquil filter for the overall pic. The Title actually has two white overlays in Bold to give that glow. It looked a little bare so I put a bit of PicMonkey garnish on top. The violet pic, I put on the girl pic as a layer and just carved away the parts I didn't need. If you have Photoshop Skills I bet you can carve it out quicker but even if you don't, now you know it can be done.

I found this girl (legal pic) who had this Eastern Caravan look so I thought I'd do some kind of caravan thing with camels (legal pic). I used FotoFlexer to cut the girl out of the black background she came with and used the "Add layer" effect in FotoFlexer to paste her on top of the camels. Since the sizing was awkward it took a few tries to get it just right. I used "Calamity Jane NF" for "Dreaming" and "Caravan". For the "of the" and the Author Name I used "Annie Use Your Telescope". There are also a bunch of filters to make the girl and the background blend together a bit more.

I found this legal pic of a feather with a white background and decided to make a simplistic cover. This one is different from the others in that I only used PicMonkey to resize and crop the cover. I used fonts from iPiccy as well as color effects and the overlay effect of the sky. The boarder is also iPiccy. If you have never messed with iPiccy it is a cool photo-editing site with awesome overlay effects. You can also make your fonts squished looking or give it stripes or circular designs. The boarders are awesome as well. However, if you want a large variety of font choices, and if that is what you primarily look for in a photo-editing site, then iPiccy may not be for you. They do have awesome fonts but not as large a choice as, say, PicMonkey. With PicMonkey you can link your own fonts to the site and use them so the choices are limitless.

Finally, my horror/Harry-Potter-vibe/goth-vibe one. The Barn Owl I cut out using FotoFlexer from another legal photo. Barn Owls are also called Ghost Owls, Death Owls and many more. You might be surprised to know that "Death Owl Manor" font is called "Mountains of Christmas". Author name is "New Yorker". I tried to blend the background and the owl using a bunch of filters. Idk what can come out of this premade cover but perhaps someone can have fun with it. Barn Owls are freaky things. They do this thing called "silent flight" where they fly without a sound and then BAM! attack their prey. Their screech is also apparently very eerie.

Premade Covers 1



This one, I just added the Title and Author Name design. I wanted it to have a sort of urban, city look so I chose Agency FB. If you don't know what that is, go to Font 1001 website and check it out. I thought it was perfect for the urban feel. I probably could have made the overall pic a little brighter, but it seemed fine the way it was. Urban, slightly sad or melancholy. Maybe even longing. If anyone wants this pic, it'll be exciting to see what story might go behind it :)

Okay, so I had this (legal) pic in my legal pic file for quite sometime. I originally downloaded it for one of my requests in Magic Cover Shop on Figment. But I found a better one and decided not to use this. It's a nice pic, just I had no idea what to do with it, you know? These people, in my opinion, didn't look like a couple. More like friends. Hence the title "Just Friends" and the subtitle "No more, no less." Perhaps someone can wield a story about two very good male and female friends who each have their own love interests outside their friendship. But in the end, the friendship never dies. Kind of like the happy-ending version of the Friend Zone, I suppose. The reason, the fonts are green...I had spring in mind.

I actually really like how this came out. I'm not gonna lie. You might be able to see that the frosted tree branches fade out in the background. Actually, it's an overlay on top of the one in the "front", or more clearer version. It just appeared very nicely in the back without being so visible on the original pic. So I flipped it and faded it so that it looked as natural as possible, adding depth to the cover. The word "Frostbite" has both a gray title and a light blue title. "Dusk" has a very light orange title and a gray title. "at" is just black faded. The Author Name is "Friandise NormalDemo" black and faded and the Title is "Poor Richard" also faded and overlayed...it might have been lightened...I don't really remember since I did make these a while back. The banners behind are both white faded. I also put a lot of filters on the original pic (legal). Some Cross Process and I think I put some black and white fade on it. If you use PicMonkey, you know what I'm talking about. I think I also added a teeny bit of Dusk effect, as well. Idk what you can get out of this but maybe someone can get something out of it.