Name of the Neví cover - Viking Visual Art Tutorial

Last time I showed you a bit on how I put together the lights and camera for my image. This time, I will show you my "post-work" as I take my scene and make it into my cover image.

Here is what I started with:

I was really pleased with this result, but this was only the starting point for the rest of my image. This is meant to be Jerreck and Jilia as they return to Irola on a ship. They are standing in the light of the double full moon (or it will be in a few days), looking out over the ocean.

Completion of ship scene - GIMP

I needed to add the ocean and night sky complete with moons.
This was fairly easily done in GIMP with its layers.

The harder part was finding a CC0 image that would work for me. I was lucky.

(Image from Good Free Photos)

I set this as my background layer for the image. Of course, I still had a slight problem - Terrenden doesn't share the Earth's moon - and it has two moons, which are red and blue, and nearing fullness for this snapshot. So, I had to have some fun.

First, I copied the moon and pasted it as a new layer.
Then, I selected one moon (making sure I was on the correct layer).
Under the Filter's tab on GIMP, I went down to "render" and "clouds". I played with it until I found a render I liked. Then I did the same thing with the blue moon.
Finally, I brightened both images so they looked more illumined.
Here's what that looked like.

Note: yes, my moons look roughly the same size from Terrenden when they conjunct for the monthly double full moon.

Now, it was just the matter of putting them together, which was pretty simple. Then, I export the visible image for my main image.... here it is:

Rest of Cover...

Next, I looked at the precedent I set with my Birth of the Neví and realized that I didn't want just a single image... so, I looked for a new picture to depict the Understory of Irola, the massive city-state on my planet. It was difficult as I wanted to find something that really showed what it would look like from way deep down in the city... I finally found it.

PxHere

I like it because it gives the impression of the city rising above you into the pollution above...
I added it as a new layer to my image, but then, I had to rotate it to do what I wanted...

I also added the hand holding a shaze like I used in the previous book - to kind of tie them together.

Because I did it for the previous book, I also went and slightly erased the edges of the moon scene to blend it into the rest of the image a little better.

Finally, I had an image I liked:

Next, I cropped the image to 6x9, making sure the hand didn't look detached.

Photoscape

Using my other free program, I went and added my text and borders the way I wanted them.

I made bubbles at around 75% opacity (which might have been slightly too much, looking at it again.) My text was in Andalus font (one of my favorites at the moment) at a size to fill the cover nicely.

Then I use the "margins" tool to add a thin black border, then a thick dark blue border (to match the sky) and a thinner black one just to add a little bit of je ne sais quoi to my image.

Now, I have something that actually looks like a cover...

What do you think?
Of course, now there is another cover on the horizon that needs to be done... and, of course, I never make it easy for myself... because that's not how I am. :-)

(Now to figure out how to add a "wet" aspect to my characters' clothing...)

Other parts of this tutorial: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Past tutorials:

Map Development for Alacantis (on GIMP), part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Cover image for Acting the Part
Cover image for Brighid's Blood (part of the update).
Cover image for Birth of the Neví, part 1, part 2
Map Development for Velantia, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Map Development for Kranisis, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Cover Image for Name of the Neví, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,

Crossposted at Steem, Whaleshares and WeKu.

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter
also on: Whaleshares, WeKu

_{Join us in the Official Whaleshares server in the text channel "the-phoenix-project"}

Name of the Neví cover - Viking Visual Art Tutorial - part 6

Completion of ship scene - GIMP

Rest of Cover...

Photoscape

Past tutorials:

Photo salvages:

Coloring Tutorials & Mini-tutorials:

Miscellaneous Artwork: