How do I make my cover for my novel more professional?

@darthmongoose Kate Holden
Sat, 26 Jun 2021 10:40:44 +0000

@darthmongoose wrote:

This is coming along pretty well! I'd advise a few changes. It was easier to just mock it up than to describe in just words, so here's what I put together and why I made the changes I did:

blood wars example copy.jpg940x1410 244 KB

Lowered the horison line and lightened the lower sky around the character. This does two things, firstly helps with the cool perspective effect that we're looking up at the awesome drawing of the character looking badass, and secondly it makes the really nice dramatic silhouette of the character with the wings and the bow and the crosses and swords in the ground read more clearly against the sky, so it's more visually punchy at a distance.

Darkened the grass at the front so the bright area draws your eye to the character in the middle and the red doesn't overwhelm the magenta wings.

Added an edge highlight to the character, crosses and swords to make them pop and add contrast and drama.

Changed up the font to something bolder and more "designery" looking. This is a mixture of Cinzel and Cinzel Decorative (both in "black", the highest boldness) They're both free and you can get them here:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cinzel?query=cinzel
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Cinzel+Decorative?query=cinzel

If you want to just use my text setup here and you have photoshop, I'm happy to send over the psd for it.

I hope that's helpful at least for some guidance.