March/April 2017 Lite Challenge: Finding the Fleet

[Mouse]

Thanks Tony

Like I said - its a bit unstable right at the moment. Too many different ideas pulling in different directions. I have to portray a sense of foreboding and mystery, but I'm not sure I need it to look demonic, which is why I toned down the red quite a bit

[Mouse]

I'm having a green day today... and things have got a lot darker!

[Mouse]

Ok. I'm still having a green day, but not quite so exclusively green.

I've also thought about the fact that most ebook covers are only ever seen quite small, so I've reduced the size of my entry map to reflect that fact, because the cover has to be clear more than anything.

The feathers relate to the story, and would be understood and recognised immediately by the mad person who decides to follow the series. I need to do a bit of redrawing on them though, so these are just placeholders for now.

[Bogie]

The darker one is very dramatic looking, but the green one is more realistic.

[kacey]

Looks good Mouse, but I have to say that I really prefer the one with the rusty coloured water, it just seems more inviting.

[Mouse]

Thanks Bogie and Kacey

I wasn't terribly keen on the blue ocean version either - not enough contrast between land and sea to catch the eye in a page full of thousands of other fantasy novel covers. I'll take the map back in the rusty direction (the last but one version) before I start work

Just so no one gets a nasty shock - I'm almost tempted to go back to the original design, but just draw it a lot better than it was done before. I'll have to make that decision in the next couple of days. Perhaps play with this a bit more till I know for sure which design I really like best.

[DanielHasenbos]

His is looking very fine Mouse! How did you make the terrain for this map? And I noticed that it's different from your Errispa world map. Is it just so much closer that we see details here that we don't see on your world map or did you change the coastlines?

[Mouse]

Thanks Daniel!

This is detail that can't be seen at the global scale - even I have to keep checking back with the world map to make sure I've got it in the right place according to the main map

The world map is a Fractal Terrains 3 world. The map on the book cover started life as an extracted enlargement of the right section, and was processed in Wilbur to produce a more weathered terrain. The reason I did this rather than simply slice a piece out of the world map is down to resolution - the original would have been badly pixelated. I then imported the Wilbur height map (an image where the black sea grades though to white mountain tops), and the Wilbur light map (relief shading) into GIMP to produce a simple base map.

I removed the white from both height and light maps, masked out and removed the ocean, and used several layers of both exported Wilbur maps to recompose the map as you see it above.

I used overlay or burn on most of the layers to pick up the parchment texture, turned one of the height map layers green instead of black, and set the blend mode to 'colour' rather than 'overlay' to colour the lower altitudes green.

[Mouse]

I've gone back to the previous but one version and found a better place to put the feather so the design isn't so top-heavy.

I think I've finished all but the feather, which needs a considerable amount of work to make it look real, rather than just being a grossly enlarged vector drawing

This is the maximum pixel size for a cover allowed by Amazon - I checked with one of their reps.



EDIT: that size in case anyone wishes to know is: no more than 2500 pixels in height, and preferably 1563 x 2500. The resolution is supposed to be 72 dpi.

[Mouse]

I'm calling this done, even though I'm not all that happy with it, and I might do another one after this if I figure out what's wrong with it before the end of the challenge