Hey. Just spent the evening coloring what could potentially be a Cork collection cover or website/blogsite banner. Tell me what you think... or don't and be just like Ellis! (grumble) Dumb ol' Ellis. (grrr)
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10 comments:
Recently at work I've been helping to design box illustrations for some of our games, so I have a lot of recent experence with marketing folks and how they approach a cover design that communicates with the potential buyer. I'm trying to bring that recent experience to bear along with a general aesthetic eye...
I like the palette you are using... I'm always a sucker for Fall-ish colors. I also like that it's clean and not over rendered. It might have more appeal if everyone was smiling in the image... Cork is the only one appoaching a smile, and it's only a half smile at that. Smiles are inviting and suggest fun.
I think a potential downside of this image is that it doesn't explicitly say that this is a humor strip. It looks interesting and quirky, but I think that an outright sight gag on the front, or perhaps a humorous subtitle might explain more clearly to a potential buyer what the book has to offer. Cork's reaction to the guy with a kitten head, for example, is funny just to look at whether you know the context or not.
Don't forget that the back cover is another opportunity to give the buyer more reasons to buy your product, such as your impressive resume and quotes from big-name friends who preview the book and write inviting back cover blurbs.
This may be more feedback than you were looking for, but I have this stuff on my mind at the moment, so I want to share it.
Start over. Paint your toenails. That always focuses me.
Thanks Rick! Some good insights into marketing. I will take advantage of the back cover stuff. I can't make Vlad or Sam outwardly smile because that's just not their demeanor or attitude. Hopefully Cork's huge boobs will be a draw in place of the smile. I mean they're just MONSTROUS! I appreciate the feedback.
Ellis, as always, your lightest touch commands obediance.
It's actually very nice. Investigate your Facebook page and find a way to link to the Cork fan page. I've seen pages with easily accessed links but i don't know how to make one.
The illo has some spots that could be given a couple of touches. You have a deft touch with vignette. But I feel you undo it in a couple of spots.
To the right of the Rodent and the Robot, I'd eliminate the grass line art. It will make the line of the character what separates from the grass on that side. It will read better.
The pizza box also could have about 80 percent of all that grass line art removed. Vlad's right, non-rake arm could be a better sillouhette if it cleanly cleared the edge of his body on that side. Also giving the body line a nice unbroken shape.
The leaves could stand a small amount of color shadow connection to the ground where they touch the grass.
I see all the leaves around Cork's upper body as being airborne. You might select the leave shapes. Use the marquee tool to just move the selection down and to the left and darken within selection, casting leaf shadows on Cork. The one going behind her wing could be completed as grayed out behind her translucent wing.
I like the idea of a CORK blog.
I will be happy to give you a good price for the domain name ,Cork.blogspot.com.
(better check on that)
Bad news. Somne dillweeed named "John" has had the domain CORK. blogpot since 2000. Made one entry and left it behind to take up bandwidth.
That's a great comic name, "John Dillweed ..."
I wonder if that domain is taken ...
... Ellis.
;-)
Great work, Scotty B.
Ellis,
You make a good point about the leaf shadows, I'm gonna add them. And I added the grass shadows in the original darwaing but I can see it looks a little odd in places once the color is added. I think I WILL tone down the pizza box shadow a bit.
I hate you. Forever.
Cool cover, Scott. I like the palette a lot. And Cork is easy on the eyes.
Rick, that is an exhaustively good write-up on the psychology of appeal. I need to print that out and stick it on my monitor.
Hey Buncake. I get into 'declarative' mode on critiques. (I read Strunk and White once.)
It's easy to to see that the pizza box shadow was a legit element of a vignette edge while it was BW.
Whereas the leaf coming out of the left side of Vlads head is unnecessarily tangenty. Make it complete and clear his head or erase it.
And since you're in photoshop, flip it on the horizontal and check it out. That can suggest compositional tweaks to be made.
Try flipping just Poops on the horizontal. See if the pizza slice being on the left leads the eye in to Cork's Toe even better than pointing directly at her toe with the slice.
I think it does well without an overt gag. This is obviously a weird enough group we'll enjoy learning about them.
This all from a guy that contributes doodles that look like a palsied shut-in trying to leave a message behind about THE OLD ONES.
Agree with Rick about adding "cat head" and the smile on Cork. Either lighten the color around the hamster or get rid of it alltogether. He's getting lost (no silhouette). But the biggest question of all is....aren't banner's supposed to be long and horizontal???
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