Creating compelling covers for a book or other visual narrative is about quickly capturing attention! There's a good market for providing book covers, but what key elements will sell your illustration?
This product contains two tutorials to help progress your work as an illustrator, using Daz Studio for book covers.
Tutorial 1 : Professional Compelling Covers (1 hour and 44 minutes)
In the first tutorial, Drew Spence takes you through specific steps to create a compelling book cover. He'll lead you through the process of crafting a story-telling cover image for your visual narratives. Drew professionally creates and publishes comic books every month so he has huge experience in capturing potential readers for their attention. As well as covering fantasy and action genres - he'll also include a case study on creating cover artwork for a romantic novel.
Learn...
- How to instantly grab attention with cover artwork
- Which fonts work on a cover depending on the genre
- Which visual elements help convey an instant story
- Case studies on creating book covers from scratch
Software used in this tutorial
Drew will use Daz Studio and Photoshop to craft the covers. Corel Particleshop is used also.
Webinar content
- Setting up for simplicity
- Composition and light in Daz Studio for additional postwork (a session study)
- Camera angles
- Rendering settings
- Backdrops and scenery
- Creating a singular image that tells an entire story or hints to the coming adventure
- Fonts and lettering, the rules guides and authoring expectations
- Genre studies and research for crafting a proper image that fits the subject matter
- Controlling the energy and dynamics of an expressive image
- Adding a fantasy and artistic look to your renders
- Recommended filters
- Recommended Photoshop actions
- Recommended graphic software
Tutorial 2 : Compelling Covers Workshop (1 hour and 38 minutes)
Various digital artists show their own book cover artwork or talk about the merits and inspirations of their favourite book cover art.
Artists include:
- Tasos Anastasiades : professional artist and assistant Professor at the European University Cyprus
- Peter von Stackelberg : publisher
- Drew Spence : professional comic book writer/illustrator
- Bob Keck: professional illustrator
- ...and other artists from the Digital Art Live community
What's Included and Features
- Two tutorial recordings
- Bonus files : PDF lesson plan, extensive resource list and Photoshop files used in presentation
- Tutorial 1 : Professional Compelling Covers
- 00:03 - Introduction
- 00:05 - The Promise : What's in a cover?
- 00:07 - Daz Studio artist book cover examples
- 00:10 - Daz Studio artist book cover examples (Joolz and Jarling)
- 00:13 - About using specific limited colour palettes
- 00:15 - Romance genre tips
- 00:17 - Realism vs Fantasy look
- 00:18 - Working in DAZ Studio to create the cover
- 00:20 - Drew’s fantasy book synopsis from a client
- 00:24 - Ensuring characters are well lit
- 00:25 - Considering aspect ratios for a book cover
- 00:28 - In Photoshop : how to make a render more fantasy-like, moving away from realism
- 00:29 - Creating a background, sizing plus placing the background and foreground images
- 00:32 - Using particle shop to accentuate some details
- 00:35 - Making the hair more fantasy style
- 00:40 - Using Ron’s brushes for extra smoke and sparkles
- 00:43 - Using filters in Topaz Studio
- 00:46 - Dynamic Auto Painter - makes a render more painterly
- 00:53 - Photoshop actions
- 00:55 - A review of some available actions in the Creative Market store
- 00:58 - Final cover artwork done
- 00:02 - Fonts for your cover
- 01:07 - Question and answers from class
- 01:11 - Comic Book covers designed by Drew
- 01:16 - In Daz Studio with the process of creating a comic book cover
- 01:19 - Breaking down a comic book cover
- 01:22 - Using "profile and peril" attention grabbing
- 01:24 - Q&A
- 01:29 - Considering yourself as an illustrator
- Tutorial 2 : Compelling Covers Workshop
- 00:03 - How to deal with a hiatus for comic production
- 00:12 - Peter von Stackelberg’s character art : expressions and emotional conflict
- 00:21 - Drew Spence on Magazine covers
- 00:30 - Bob Keck on creating book covers for commercial projects
- 00:40 - Trevor Hancock’s artwork
- 00:49 - John Stroo’s book cover artwork
- 00:55 - Paul Bussey’s favourite selection of comic book covers
- 01:02 - Michael Cugley - learning from favourite comic book covers
- 01:18 - Tasos Anastasiades - TPub comic covers
- 01:38 - End
Install Types:
Install Manager, Manual Install
