Let's give each other fancy tips about our covers!

[Hipiticus]

you've got some good tips, i'll give em a shot. 20-25 degrees to the left, what about to the right?

[harlan]

The right would work too!

[theyrebothakilogram]

@lizardlullabye Thank you so much! Switching to blue looks a lot better already, and I'll make sure to fix the shadow,

@darthmongoose I'm glad you like the logo! I figured out how to use the path tool for that I was trying to avoid making the title too small, but it does look like its trying to escape the page so I'll go fix that. I see what you're saying about the context, it definitely feels more like a spotlight than a search light because of the pose. A stage might be a more fitting backdrop as far as the overall message that's being portrayed. I'll admit I didn't realize the original was from x-men, I had only seen different comic series referencing it lol. I really appreciate your advice, this gives me a lot of idea's for how I can improve the cover! Thank you so much!

[theyrebothakilogram]

Hello! These are some of the ideas that I had for my comic cover (pardon the sketchyness) Some of these are ideas I've had for awhile that I just didn't know how to execute others are new ideas, I just wanted to post on here to ask which one y'all thought was best. Here's the basic rundown

1) This is the same concept as my current cover but instead of her shadow being distorted it's her reflection, I didn't end up doing this one last time because buildings are difficult to draw and reflective buildings are also difficult to draw, I tried looking up tutorials but had little luck
2) This one originally was also going to have a reflective aspect, but looking at pictures of surfers their reflection doesn't really show up in the water. For this one I was also thinking of making the wave like a cloud since she's a wind based superhero, but I couldn't get the idea to translate from my head to the paper
3) My idea was for their shadows to join in the shape of a scale (get it? Because 'they're both a kilogram' lol) but I don't really know what to put in the background besides the shadow, and also it may look a little weird because of the middle column that comes out of nowhere
4) There's nothing really stopping me from making this one other than it doesn't quite match the tone of my story, I was also thinking I would be able to fit more characters onto this one if I wanted, eg put the whole squad on the disk, but I wasn't sure if that would make it too busy

Thank you so much for reading and let me know which cover you think would work best!

[Hipiticus]

How about now? I didn't want to make the paw too crooked so I straightened it a bit. I moved the title a bit down and added my author name at the bottom.

[Tanako]

Here is my main cover. I do have another comic but I couldn't fine the cover to it so, Yeah! I really like the colors.

Read Since I Met You | Tapas Web Comics

[darthmongoose]

These are all really nice cover designs with good compositions.

So I'm feeling very pained as I bring up the forthcoming "but" after you clearly put work and thought into these...but...

None of them tells the viewer what the comic is about, so I wouldn't pick any of these (sorry!). I think maybe you're over-thinking this a bit.

I went and had a little look through the first pages of your comic, and here are the key points I think a cover needs to sell:

• This is a comic about an equally matched Superhero and Supervillain with basically opposing powersets. She's light as a feather and can fly, he has a gadget for everything.
• She's no-nonsense and idealistic, he's vain and arrogant, and the interplay between them is fun!
• It has an action-packed, wacky and comedic tone, focused on likeable characters.

So, to me, this should:

• Show two characters and make them look like they're equals (helps the audience understand that "They're both a Kilogram" refers to these two.)
• Have them fighting or arguing because their antagonism towards each other is the fun unique selling point.
• If possible show the contrast between them, like she can fly and is a classic superhero type, he's a villain with gadgets; that's fun and cool.

I'm not going to give a ton of example ideas because I think you can come up with something better yourself (you know your characters and style better than I do) but to illustrate, I think if you have both the characters currently looking like they're in a fight or a tense situation, and just show it literally, like on one of these, she's flying in to punch him and he's aiming a weird gadget gun at her and holding a ton of wacky gadgets like "there's more where that came from!" kind of feeling. Or another, she's grabbed him and is holding him up high in the sky, above the clouds, but he's holding a gun or something and a control for some sort of machine- what is it?! A bomb!? Tension!

The cover scenario doesn't have to be complicated or metaphorical, because you already have a great, simple thing to sell: Superhero is frustrated because this cocky-ass supervillain loves to tease her for her inability to stop him. She can fly (awesome), he has gadgets (also awesome). See what you can come up with to get that across. Make sure both of their faces are visible so we can see the emotional interplay between them; the rivalry between these interesting characters is a big point of appeal.

[harlan]

It’s looking good . I’m glad to see your name on it.

[darthmongoose]

This cover is mostly fine. I think the positioning of the characters is appealing, and the soft watercolours suit the tone and the intended audience really well. If I scour for a thing to change, the hand of the person on the left is a little oddly positioned. The fingers are wrapping around like they're gently holding the other character's back...but then that person's elbows are also under the hand, as if the arms don't have volume.
Maybe try having the elbow of the character on the right instead overlap the hand of the other character, to enhance both the illusion of volume, and to really get that feeling of bodies woven together.

That's really all I have to suggest. This is a very nicely drawn and composed cover with great balance.

[Hipiticus]

Thanks for your help! I'll make sure to work on the fancy variant as well

[Tanako]

lol, Thanks for the good tip. I'll look into what you mentioned.

[YS_og]

@lizardlullabye you give THE absolute best cover reviews o_o

Even though they're other's works, it's already so much to keep in mind for anything I try next in the future.

With that said, I did want to also comment on the OP's cover. @kristynamaximova Did anyone mention the hand placement? That's the only thing besides the blocked title letters that stuck out to me. I wanna say the hand placed on his chest needs to be at an angle facing his forearm to their outside since they're that close together and the wrist joint would have to be fairly bent that direction to fit there.

And here's mine:

It's an Action/Sci-fi Mecha story with a heavy dose of family drama and geopolitics. Takes place in the not too terribly distant future, and no dystopia or anything. I want to know if the cover is too busy, underutilized space etc, or even if it has anything counterproductive to giving off such vibes or description as written above

[Katzalcoatl]

How much feedback do you want (even the smallest details)? Or just general stuff like composition? Could you also state what your story is about to give more accurate feedback?

[YS_og]

My bad. I forgot to do so in my rush earlier;;;

I will edit it into my original post

[Katzalcoatl]

I can see the mecha. But if the plot is heavy on family drama you might want to add something that says it is about family. As for what I see lacking is a bit of balance in the composition of certain elements (nothing major it just needs a bit of symmetry in certain parts).

I'll use images to explain what I mean:

The gap of the tittle from the top of the cover is too small. It makes it look like you ran out of space.
If I were you I would try to balance it more so it keeps a nice gap just like the one it has from the sides of the tittle to the edges of the cover.
You might have to play with it by moving the tittle a bit down, by making the letters a bit smaller or both.

I would personally reduce the amount of light reflected by the gun by just a tiny bit.
This will prevent the reflection of light from being the first thing the viewers sees.
The size distracts the viewer for a tiny second before they look at the rest of the cover.

You had a great idea on the letters of the bottom. It would be great if the light here left a trail with the shape of the letter. If you leave the trail of light as it is I would suggest making all letters consistant by having all of them leave a trail of light instead of having some letters (like the o in Koons) leave no trails of light.

Last but not least your tittle should have a consistant outline.
On the word Infinity you changed the outline to different tones of blue.
It looks like you ran out of ink printing a poster. I would suggest making the outline black or dark blue.
Same goes for the word harbinger but for a different reason.
The effect you added on Harbinger plus the slightly blue outline make the word look blurry.

For my taste, the infinity symbol is heavily concentrated on the right but I like symmetry lol.

[lizardlullabye]

There are good parts about the cover that look cool and work separately, but not together. . . ?
The title is clean cut like metal. The mecha is dynamic, playful and cannon-slinging in space. The humans are also cold and stern like metal? If the humans are the mecha' pilots, their "seriousness" currently doesn't match the mecha's action -- in fact, I'm not sure how anyone is related to each other -- friends, mecha & pilot, rival co-workers?

If this is mecha and their pilot, they should (PROBABLY) share the same energy so we get, yes person is piloting the mecha. Like in the Rugrats movie, a toddler piloting a giant robot scratched their butt, and so did the giant robot.

Just a side note for the lady. It appears she turned her body to the left, then turned her head to the right, and returned her sight to the left. These actions doesn't seem to fit her stern expression, which likely would just have turned her head back left to look left. That seems more efficient and direct. A character's eyes, head and/or torso can POSSIBLY point to where they are focusing on.

P.S. pretty sure last time I (kinda) reviewed this, it was just note to remove the colon. . .

[YS_og]

Thanks for spotting those inconsistencies! It's a wonder I never noticed those until now Those will definitely be tweaked when I get around to redoing the character art pieces. Only thing I will keep is the asymmetry of the infinity loop because I wanted that asymmetry in particular, feeling as if things felt more off balance when I had the shape in the exact middle without the altered angle/twist applied.

But yeah I also see your point on the cannon glare. Will try with it backed off some

[YS_og]

I remember now!! lol My bad, that was so long ago I had forgotten that was you I did remove the colon thanks to you pointing that out lol

But those two pointers are pretty big. I do need a character art redo since my style slightly changed since then (the 2 were drawn in 2020 and I just kept upcycling it as the cover changed), and those are great suggestions to follow. Planned on various art redos this spring/summer and the cover fixup was one on that list. Thanks again!!

[TMark_Art]

WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK. THANKS GUYS!!!

Read Kram-Bot: and the Alien Apocalypse :: One last robot. | Tapas Comics

[TMark_Art]

I'm a fan of the second one you've got. It says more about their personality than the first one. We know what the superhero doesn't know.