Part Four
Yup, I created the cover for the Fairy Tale. That was probably my least favorite thing about traditional publishing. My first book…I didn’t choose the cover. As you can see, it ended up looking pretty…cheesy. I was 16 and just happy to have my work published, but still, UGH! You can imagine my disappointment. So for the Fairy Tale, I considered having actual artists do it.
Background
One of my responsibilities at my job is web design. The web is very particular for what looks good and not, and a lot of the images I had been requested to put online were really sub-par. So over the course of a few years, I began to make my own graphics by modifying pictures into what I needed them to be. I started off with Paint.net (amazing freeware!) and use that for all graphic art I need for the web, promos for print, sermon covers or recreating other’s stolen/cruddy artwork for events.
Coming together
Like I said, I totally wanted an actual artist to do my cover, and actually offered the task to an art student at my church. She’s a very good artist and is often given requests, so mine sat on her back-burner for years.
During that time, I was really digging all the digital art I found on DeviantArt and thought…maybe I can do this. I still wasn’t really being me…I honestly thought I could learn a whole new process and have it perfected for my book. I downloaded Sketchbook and began to tinker. I was watching a tutorial for it and it played an ad about photomanipulation.
Light bulb! I had been doing photomanipulation for years! I know exactly how to do it! So, I upgraded to Photoshop and began putting art on Deviantart and Instagram. I spent several weeks learning the quirks of Photoshop, and though I make no claim to be a master, I certainly learned my way around.
In June of 2019, I finally got a model, took a bunch of shots and got to gettin’!
I had to make some compromises. I knew I wanted Key 7 to be the cover. But the red just didn’t really look good. I couldn’t really get the path to look how I wanted. Meh. I must’ve started over like twenty times…changing the scene, changing the directions, even once changing Key 7 to Key 10. But it wasn’t what I wanted.
I was working on art for the old Bents Fort musing, and playing with fog and clouds. So what if I don’t have it red? What if I don’t show the path at all? What if I don’t show anything?
Doin’ Work
So I got started. The more I played with it, the more I began to love it. Once, when almost complete, I accidentally added a blue filter, when I simply wanted to make it darker. I liked it. I showed it around, and everyone liked it. I loved it. Perfect piece of photoshop master’s work? No. Something I love and not embarrassed to show off? For sure!
Fun Facts
Nerd-Alert. There is a legit dragon bestiary (“a descriptive or anecdotal treatise on various real or mythical kinds of animals, especially a medieval work with a moralizing tone.”) and I may have used it to find out how big Sean and Saramine’s wings would have to be according to their height. Yeah. Science.