[Custom Covers] Blanks, Templates - get them, share them, help to modify and create

[Sefiriot]

Originally Posted by MiniMouse

Glad I could help

These are no book covers, right? They are for your music?
I like the artwork.
The first one is the final or the second one? Or are they both final?
Anyway, I like the first one more. The picture is more sharp and I personally prefer that.

MiniMouse

LOL no, not music! This is the cover for my saved and compiled anthology of this epic length fanfic series in the Mummy fandom (yeah, the 1999 movie and sequels starring Brendan Fraser)-- "No Certain Victory", written by Khamira (and the late, lamented Scheherazade). It's slashfic, but wonderfully well written, and very long. Just waiting for the second arc now, really.

I went looking for a good picture/poster from the movies and then edited it to suit myself. The second is the final version. I decided to blur the picture a little with Gaussian blurring because I found that in the case of the first cover, having so many subjects clearly visible on the cover makes the title and author text harder to focus on; hence the darkening and blurring. There's also a sepia layer in there contributing to the atmosphere.

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Sefiriot

LOL no, not music! This is the cover for my saved and compiled anthology of this epic length fanfic series in the Mummy fandom (yeah, the 1999 movie and sequels starring Brendan Fraser)-- "No Certain Victory", written by Khamira (and the late, lamented Scheherazade). It's slashfic, but wonderfully well written, and very long. Just waiting for the second arc now, really.

I went looking for a good picture/poster from the movies and then edited it to suit myself. The second is the final version. I decided to blur the picture a little with Gaussian blurring because I found that in the case of the first cover, having so many subjects clearly visible on the cover makes the title and author text harder to focus on; hence the darkening and blurring. There's also a sepia layer in there contributing to the atmosphere.

Okay, I can see you like pixlr and played with all the tools.
Since fanfiction is my big weakness and I love well written and long stories (and like the Mummy movies) AND have no problem with slash, I will check it out.

MiniMouse

[MiniMouse]

I think I will post DoctorOhh to put the generic cover stuff in a new thread. He put my first posts in this thread after I put them first in the Generate Cover Plugin section.

Title would be:

[Custom Covers] Blanks, Templates - get them, share them, help to modify and create

...that is, if the title isn't too long.

What do you think?

But I want to write a post to this first and since it is allready late in Germany (and I have no time tomorrow) it has to wait till Wednesday. Till then you can give me other suggestions for the thread title.

AND I created a new cover. It's a little extravagant this time. Played with the settings in pixlr. But somehow I like it.

Textures are:
colored silk paper
fabric of my sofa
asphalt
some ivy on a tree

Again, all my own pictures. Hope you like it too.

MiniMouse

[mljoshua]

I would think that you should ask the guy Vital if he cares that you use his images.

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by mljoshua

I would think that you should ask the guy Vital if he cares that you use his images.

What images are you refering too exactly?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by MiniMouse

Now I have some more to play around with

I'd love to see what you do with them. I've tried some ornaments, but it just doesn't work (yet). It looks crap. As does the text I put onto the covers. GIMP is missing some layer style stuff Photoshop has (but I don't use PS anymore); I'll see if I can find some GIMP plugins.

Three more basic covers (or more accurate: colors and structures); black pleather, brown and maroon are linen. And then I'm out of books that have a plain cover. I have some more, but I'm not uploading those. The covers are actually plastic, with very little structure. They're just flat colors.

Now I'll take a look into the ornaments and GIMP layer plugins.

edit: I've found the missing layer plugin, and grabbed a free ornament from the net. I've added a maroon cover with an embossed title ornament (and a bit more contrast).

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'd love to see what you do with them. I've tried some ornaments, but it just doesn't work (yet). It looks crap. As does the text I put onto the covers. GIMP is missing some layer style stuff Photoshop has (but I don't use PS anymore); I'll see if I can find some GIMP plugins.

Three more basic covers (or more accurate: colors and structures); black pleather, brown and maroon are linen. And then I'm out of books that have a plain cover. I have some more, but I'm not uploading those. The covers are actually plastic, with very little structure. They're just flat colors.

Now I'll take a look into the ornaments and GIMP layer plugins.

edit: I've found the missing layer plugin, and grabbed a free ornament from the net. I've added a maroon cover with an embossed title ornament (and a bit more contrast).

Yeah, like that ornament cover!!!!!
And again...more to play for me.

My ornaments don't work either for now (with the pictures of flowers and leaves I took) but then again I hadn't really time to test them yet. Have to play around with pixlr a while and see what comes out of it.

When I have some you guys are the first to see

MiniMouse

[Sefiriot]

How do you go about creating/obtaining those ornaments by the way? I ask because I was thinking of hand-drawing some on my own (just the ornaments) and tossing them here for people to use, since Zentangle patterns would be amazing for this sort of thing. See the attached image at bottom for an example of what I mean.

Problem is I haven't the slightest idea what would be needed to get them into a format/whatever is needed for them to be useful to cover makers. No idea how I'd go about changing the colours on it either......

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Sefiriot

How do you go about creating those ornaments by the way? I was thinking of hand-drawing some on my own (just the ornaments) and tossing them here since Zentangle patterns are amazing for this sort of thing. Problem is I haven't the slightest idea what would be needed to get them into a format/whatever is needed for them to be useful to cover makers......

I thought about drawing myself but I first wanted to test some pictures I took. Mostly I collected blossems and leaves and photographed them against white (so I could easily cut them out in pixlr). Some of them I glued on white paper to get them plain before I took the pictures. Then I will play with filters in pixlr and see what comes out of it.

My ornament on the blue leather cover I made in pixlr too. I made 1 layer black, put a 2. layer over it in white and used the cutting tools in pixlr to cut some of the white layer. Then I played with the deform options in pixlr.

The final ornament I put on the blue leather cover and played with the merge-functions. When I was happy I duplicated the layer again and again and set one by one where I wanted it to be. Though it were a little too much layers, changes were almost impossible because you couldn't find the layer you wanted to delete. And it was a little bit to much of work because I set them all from hand.

I could but the project up here (I think I still have it) if you want? I started to save some interim stages. Then you could see for yourself what I did.

Did you draw the picture by yourself? It's great! My question would be, what you want it to look like, then maybe I can help.

MiniMouse

Edit:
I'm new to this stuff too. We find out together, okay?
Maybe someone with more experience will join in and help out too...(only my expressed wish).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Sefiriot

How do you go about creating/obtaining those ornaments by the way? I ask because I was thinking of hand-drawing some on my own (just the ornaments) and tossing them here for people to use, since Zentangle patterns would be amazing for this sort of thing. See the attached image at bottom for an example of what I mean.

Problem is I haven't the slightest idea what would be needed to get them into a format/whatever is needed for them to be useful to cover makers. No idea how I'd go about changing the colours on it either......

You can find many free ornaments on the web. Just do a search

If you're going to make some, I'd advise to save them in SVG format, or if you're going to use jpg or png, make them at least 2500 pixels on the long side, so they can be scaled down for use on covers.

I've been fiddleing with the Bump Map option in GIMP. It can create very nice embossing (lowering and raising) effects; in combination with ornaments and some color overlay, it works very nicely. Together with the layer styles, it's what I've been looking for to set ornaments into the cover instead of just sticking them on top of it.

It actually works great for complete covers too. If you have a low-res cover in a book, you can just stretch it to fill a leather cover, and emboss it into it, and then sharpen it. I'll show something later

Man, this is so NOT like editing pictures

edit: I think Pixlr can't do bump mapping, but I have seen an "Emboss" filter. Normally it can be used to do basic bump mapping.

PS: A bump map is a greyscale image, which is then used to "print" that image into or onto a surface. Imagine a patch of leather, and a huge stamp. The stamp is the greyscale bump map. If you stamp the leather from the top, you print the image into the leather (recessed), if you stamp from the bottom, you print the image onto the leather (raised).

It's great for creating ornaments

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You can find many free ornaments on the web. Just do a search

If you're going to make some, I'd advise to save them in SVG format, or if you're going to use jpg or png, make them at least 2500 pixels on the long side, so they can be scaled down for use on covers.

Pixlr can't SVG! So better use jpg or png but as big as possible is always good.

Pixlr can't do Vector either, so when you use ornaments from free online sides, you can only use the jpg or png.

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Man, this is so NOT like editing pictures

Yeah, but it is a lot of fun! At least I can't stop doing this anymore.

[Sefiriot]

I was thinking of a general geometric pattern, one that's not too complex based on the Paradox pattern (my favourite!) all over the book cover, quite faint: it should look like stamped leather-- recessed version (you've seen an example in Leather Cover 1, first generic covers post). Only the space enclosed by the title ornament would be left plain.

I think it'd probably work better on a nice darker coloured leather cover, though having it as a pattern on a linen cover might be intriguing.

As for what I might do on a linen cover, I'd like to try making something more organic, similar looking to your Leather Cover #10 or Linen Cover #2. I'd probably use the Mooka pattern for the frame and something else to fill in edges or embellish it; maybe Crescent Moon. Have to think about it and drawing these things takes time.

ETA: I'm going to be hand-drawing these things; as in pen on paper. I doubt my scanner will do SVG. >.<

[MiniMouse]

Originally Posted by Sefiriot

I was thinking of a general geometric pattern, one that's not too complex based on the Paradox pattern (my favourite!) all over the book cover, quite faint: it should look like stamped leather-- recessed version (you've seen an example in Leather Cover 1, first generic covers post). Only the space enclosed by the title ornament would be left plain.

I think it'd probably work better on a nice darker coloured leather cover, though having it as a pattern on a linen cover might be intriguing.

As for what I might do on a linen cover, I'd like to try making something more organic, similar looking to your Leather Cover #10 or Linen Cover #2. I'd probably use the Mooka pattern for the frame and something else to fill in edges or embellish it; maybe Crescent Moon. Have to think about it and drawing these things takes time.

In Pixlr you can find effects under filters like kaleidoscope or water swirl. Try them, maybe you get some of the effects with them.

Edit:
I made some simple once to show you what pixlr can do. First I made simple black and white layers and cutted them, then I played around with the kaleidoscope effect. The 2. one is the same effect after I put the water swirl effect on.

[Sefiriot]

Originally Posted by MiniMouse

In Pixlr you can find effects under filters like kaleidoscope or water swirl. Try them, maybe you get some of the effects with them.

Nope, tried it, didn't really produce what I had in mind, but I do like the kaleidoscope filter. I played around with it on your Linen Cover #3 and got these results...