How do/did you make your covers?

[akitsukino]

I'm really bad at deciding on how to make covers. I get along fine with actual pages, but there's just something about drawing cover pages that intimidates me. Maybe its because covers have to have a bit more staying power than pages, because there's usually only one or a few covers but dozens of regular pages.
How do it ? What's your process? Show me some pictures and give me some tips (I'd also like to know how you designed your logo/ title). Thanks.

P. S Here are some pictures of the main characters if you think that might help. The story is just about a girl who beats up a monster and then traps it in her phone.

Sorry about the quality.

[shiftingverses]

The general rule of covers is that they should tell something of a narrative themselves (or at least give people an idea of what's going on inside (sometimes you can do a bait and switch this way, like those classic Superman covers where he's a dick)).

Technically I draw my covers initially as pencil sketches, as I do the interior pages, but I render them in a more realistic style. For example this cover

Is this scene in the comic:

My first cover wasn't very successful

It just had generic heads and doesn't communcate much other than resembling an old movie poster (but even then it was poorly reseached). Also as I was aiming for print as the end goal, the logo and position is practically useless as when the comic is stacked on a shelf you can't see squat. It's worth considering this even if you're doing web only. A load of dead space people have to scroll past isn't grabbing anyone's attention.

[Michelle]

I generally go with a key moment from the whole chapter, something that doesn't spoil the story but hints at the overall theme or focus for that chapter. Here's examples from my comic:

Chapter 1 introduces us to the main character and world, so I wanted to highlight that right off the bat.

Chapter 2 starts digging into the unseen dark side of the city. The train yard is where we learn some backstory; it also stands in contrast to the more pristine cityscape in chapter 1's cover.

Chapter 3's main focus is largely centered around meeting a new character who changes the course of the story, so I wanted to tease the new character while showing the reactions of the MCs.

For the logo/title, I have a separate PSD file where I keep those together as a layered template, so it can be consistent across the different covers. It's good to pick a font and design that reflects the aesthetic of your comic. There's lots of nice title fonts to be found on sites like Blambot and 1001 Free Fonts. :>

I'd suggest focusing your cover on the three elements you mentioned; the girl, the monster, and her phone. Think of a key moment in your story that would be able to pique readers' interest and use that as a basis for your design! Try out a bunch of different thumbnails and see what sticks; I usually go through a ton of different tiny ideas before settling on one thing.

[Shanny8]

I mainly try to make my covers around the concept of that particular issue/chapter- something that grabs a reader's eyes in makes them want to read the comic.

With this cover, the focus was conflict between Ray & his mother, that started when he was six. He felt he didnt really know her, hence the reason she's faceless- symbolic, but captures the main point.

[Wumbl]

Well I have a theme to my front covers. Each one is modelled off of some kind of visuals by the band Franz Ferdinand.
I've named the chapters after their songs as well so it works surprisingly well.
Similarly to my pages, backgrounds are often minimal or abstract. This is because the comic has a deeply 1980s feel and I wanted to emulate the style in the art and colours. Comics from the 80s tend to experiment in this way with backgrounds. (at least from my experience of reading them)

My first cover is based off of the album cover for "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand" but I will also be using photoshoot material and music videos. For example, the chapter "Johnny Delusional" will feature the story's villain dressed in the uniform seen in the Johnny Delusional music video.
As for the composition it's simple - the main character is focal and in the front, and this chapter explores him as a person. I wanted to paint him as an unpredictable and mysterious character so using the album cover pose did this nicely.

As for how I made it step by step, I did the whole thing digitally.
I sketched it out, cleaned up my sketch and then painted it. I used an oil painting brush.
I created gradients and some other assets and just kind of messed with them until I got a appealing background.

[lolinone]

For the cover of my comic Subterranean I looked up movie posters to see what are typical powerful, simple covers. I found a couple of posters that had the same type of layouts that I really liked and went for the same style.

[Silerna]

I guess I'm one of the few people who makes their covers completely traditional (only adding watermark +text digitally). I draw my characters and color them with watercolors. Because I know their neighbourhood is located at shore I added the seashore+palmtrees.
I never make my covers digital as I should. But I always liked to do traditional artwork more then digital .

[CaptnHeroic]

Look at other covers of a similar genra, see what they are doing.
I had some fun with this one and created a homage to a popular Spider-Man comic book.
Try to summarize the story, or find a key point in the story and draw it with as much action as you can, or exagerate what you want to show about that episode.

[OgonoArtFamily]

My cover for Osca . This cover was sketched out, inked and colored traditionally with copic markers. (it's used in manga a lot).

I painted the background digitally. SO, this is a mixture of traditional and digital