Show us your series poster & why it's designed like that

lynestjules 2020-09-20 13:32:50 UTC #8

I'll do the first cover only.

The Mood: I wanted to show something light and happy, as the story starts off that way. I always want the covers to not necessarily give away what's going to happen, but to give the reader the mood of the chapter.

The Characters They're the 3 princesses that you'll be introduced to in the first chapter and the title of the series is attached to those three.

The Positioning Laying on the grass with your friends, is something you when you're relaxing or just having fun. Having them holding hands like this was to show a strong friendship as their linked by something important. As well, as it spoke to me from a game we used to play as kids "Red Rover". You hold hands and call someone over from the other team and they have to try to run through the link. Sometimes they can't, because the link is too strong, but other times, they get through and the link is broken. Which in this case, fit for the story perfectly.

nathanKmcwilliams 2020-09-20 14:20:39 UTC #9

I've got a few. Honestly I don't really think about composition at all when I'm drawing

Well for one. I really like Silver Age comic covers. They're always so bombastic.
So I use poses like something Jack Kirby would draw.
The above cover is for the first prologue arc, so I have my main powering up, while being advanced by some shadowy figure.

And this one, kind of strays from that whole Silver Age aesthetic to show a young Rip, pondering what his parents look like. As they look down on him from a lofty position, indicating they're unavailable to him.
Spotlight says he's alone.

Links are in my profile.

lilithfairenwrites 2020-09-20 14:31:52 UTC #10

Being...how to put it best?... Being a person who writes because they have no other talent in which to express a story in any other medium, my covers are far from the works of art other folks have shared here.

For the figure representing the main character in her magical-girl form, I used a magical-girl character generator and took the silhouette of a character I whipped together, because character generators really can't make exactly what you have in mind for a character. The golden sky represents the realm of Solis, a parallel dimension that plays a role in the story. The falling feathers that darker towards the bottom of the cover? Surely they're meaningful in regards to the plotline of our bird-themed heroine...

(Basically, "it's designed like that because that's the best I can do". )

Tamaki_Leon 2020-09-20 15:01:40 UTC #11

Heya~! So I'm a novelist that's writing my novel with a bunch of artists friends who help me draw my characters (I really appreciate them so much!), this is one of the art (The cover art) of the book, made by one of them.

So let's start off with the MC, in the story, we have three MCs (And a few more, however I won't get to that part since it is a spoiler), the guy on the left, Eric, the middle, Ryan and the right, Sarah.

The representation of this cover art, is that the three are in battle mode holding their weapons. They have each their own expressions to indicate their seriousness/takings of said battle. Who or may I said 'what' are they fighting against? Find out in the story :3

The characters expression indicates their stance of the battle, with Eric being excited, while Ryan and Sarah being serious.

As for the backdrop, it was a simple one, the backdrop shows glass shattering as the three characters headed in for battle. There's a reason why the colour of the glass is purple, to break through the facade of corruption thus 'breaking the glass'.

Besides that, that is it. Overall I wanted to show my characters through the cover, showing that they are fighting against the forces of evil, 'corruption'.

lunagraves714 2020-09-20 15:07:34 UTC #12

I really like this idea!

For my cover, I chose a very common sign used by most K-pop idols (if not all). It creates a heart shape using the thumb and index finger and is commonly shown as a sweet gesture to their fans or vice versa. The main thing I wanted to get across here, aside for giving the appearance that the hand is gripping the title and making the finger heart more subtle, is that “Super“ relates to someone or something in the realm of K-pop idols. As for the hand itself, it’s tinted blue to represent death.

mx_Jinn 2020-09-20 15:32:51 UTC #13

This is a great thread! If I am perfectly honest I just wanted to draw my MC making out with an ex, which I tend to have a series of images of that do just that.

Its one of the things I love drawing, soft tender kisses of my MC, with various beautiful women as so, I deffo have more but i don’t wanna spam up the thread

surenlicious 2020-09-20 15:54:46 UTC #14

The cover of my novel Jade Kingdoms is meant to show the rising of one's own strength, even as your world crumbles apart. The crystal around the main character is known as the Jade Construct, a manifestation of thought, memory and emotion. If one appears, it is never a good sign, for its a metaphor the user's mental state has succumbed to its turmoil.

The main character of the book, Suren, is depicted alone here. Mental health battles are done alone, no matter how much you're surrounded by inherently good people. In Suren's case - a highborn princess - she is met with animosity and ridicule concerning her mental fight, and so are many of her kin. It's a cultural poison that doesn't go away. That poison is why the colour green is so prominent...

....but its also prominent because Suren wants to heal. And the road to recovery is never a pretty one, no matter how it is romanticized. It's why I also drew the crystals as if they are about to entomb her. Suren is treated as a prisoner, objectified everywhere.

alexlcuri07 2020-09-20 16:18:01 UTC #15

Love this thread idea 🥰

My cover actually has a morphing symbolism depending on where you are at this point in the series.

At first, the cover represents the main protagonist and the main antagonist to show their connection throughout the story.

Later, the reader comes to find that the description of the antagonist is very similar to that of another character in the story and the cover could easily become about this new relationship instead. It is also a specific scene in the story from when those two characters first officially meet.

The dark waters represent the emotional turmoil of many of the MCs. And the position of the bodies themselves in white clothing and light represent duality and also simultaneously sameness because a huge part of the novel is the idea that no one person knows everything and that no one person's story is right or wrong. "Blank spaces" (Lacuna in English) can only be bridged through creating mutual understanding. Which is why the book is also written in multiple points of view and why the two characters, regardless of who they are interpretted to be, are directly opposed and still connected.

And on that note- I put way more into this than I thought.

Fuzzyman818 2020-09-20 18:10:43 UTC #16

Here is my poster.

I was going for something with some combat elements while also having a comedic tone. It shows what the general series is about and what the main source of conflict will be. I don't weather I've managed to pull this off but I'm proud of this work none the less.

CommanderMarty 2020-09-20 18:11:56 UTC #17

Here's the first cover of my upcoming comic Bounty Turn.

I designed it to show what the series is gonna be about. Downside is that it takes ten chapters for the main character to get to space.

MeltingCORE 2020-09-20 20:40:20 UTC #18

Yes, I love topics like this! Everyone has such cool answers.

So, this is the cover I painted for volume one of my series... "Red Shift" tackles several different topics with two of the major ones being government corruption (how that destroys lives + civilizations) and the concept of individual reality viewed through the lens of dreams. The story takes place on a hell-like, industrialized world that is ruled by fear and manipulation. If you subdue the masses from birth, the idea is that they won't revolt... At least, the ruling party of this world believes this to be true. (They won't even allow most citizens to fly hovercraft because they are sure citizens may enact domestic terrorism! Maybe they just want to get a drink faster?) Anyways, the lava is there because the world is quite literally molten. It has a dense atmosphere and reddish hue because their twin planet planet permanently eclipses their pocket dimension's star, Binaria. (Yes, the two worlds + Binaria exist in a pocket dimension that moves through the membrane of all realities. I'm using a fictional version of the real physics theory M-theory. I won't get into that too much here.)

The horned cutie is one of the major female characters: Stellar. She is her world's (Apokolips) primary astronomer who scouts out other worlds for the military to invade. Later on, she realizes how wrong this truly is even though everyone around her screams that it is righteous. She knows that she can't fix what she has done. Sometimes you can't fix things no matter how badly you want too. Sometimes "sorry" isn't enough. Anyways, Stellar is dreaming on the cover. Hence her not being boiled by the lava. She and the other major character, Steppenwolf, have persistent odd dreams. Steppenwolf can't ever remember his even though they are trying to warn him about his future. Stellar recalls hers but believes her mind is responsible for stitching together visions of far away worlds. She is neither here or there: She exists in her own little world and is presently too scared to see beyond her own due her past actions.

I'm sorry if that was too long winded, I love talking about my concepts! >.<

Princessmossy 2020-09-20 20:45:06 UTC #19

You guys sure did put in a lot more thought than me.

My head was empty when drawing this, doesn't mean there's no symbolism here! First of all the land is bathed in red which I did for cool lighting but it certainly gives the whole thing an ominous feeling. There's something bad about this scene, something wrong. There is also a barren tree and rocky hills. The world is barren and lifeless. Anna is very close to the viewer, I wanted her to feel intimidating. But only half of her is visible, she only allows a part of herself to be seen. This is pretty accurate to the characters untrusting nature. There is also a cats eye looking over the land but it's also looking down at Anna. This is the gemstone symbolizing the royal family and is featured on Anna's sword and The Tiger Kingdoms crown. Her royal lineage/status hangs over her head, watching her, judging her.

Anyway that's what I think is going on! I make a new one of these every chapter so I could talk about the other ones cause it's very fun to talk about them but I don't wanna spam this thread ha ha. Anyway if you wanna see the other ones heres a link! https://tapas.io/series/The-Tiger-Queen/info

krinscoop 2020-09-20 20:46:53 UTC #20

I honestly have no idea. I was originally just working on a portrait of one of my characters from the comic then I just decided to slap the title on it, and wa-la.

Zorianna 2020-09-20 20:50:00 UTC #21

The resoning behind mine is to show the importance of the tree in the story as well as the main protaganist. She up on a hill overlooking what lies below, but what's in the valley below changes a few times so it's better to not show what state it's in. As the story goes along I'll be adding more characters to it as they become more important in the story. It's mainly her story, but even though she feels alone in it, she isn't, so she shouldn't have to stand alone either.

plus the second version im still fixing up a bit

Tesorini 2020-09-20 20:54:10 UTC #22

I kind of explained my cover in another thread, I’ll share here too. So I was inspired by the Transformers comic collections I used to have

I liked the idea of featuring one character for each arc. My novel spans years, so it’s a great way to introduce new characters, update uniforms, etc. Each arc will be released every 6~ months as I’ll be alternating releases with another series. I think it’ll be cool to see the characters grow

montrasimartina 2020-09-20 22:02:02 UTC #23

This is my cover!
I used some violet / purple vibes because is considered the color of the magic: the main character is a young mage!
The two protagonists are traveling and are in a city (The story talks about a year's long journey) and I wanted to show the relationsheep between them: Bertie, the boy, is a powerfulk mage but uses his magic to "play" with Hana, who's a child grown up in a military academy and is very disciplined girl. She watches the magic with true wonder;During their journey Bertie helps hana to rediscover her childwood and Hana helps him to become more responsable.
Hope You like it! ^ _ ^
(Sorry for my bad english, I'm Italian)

diamondactor 2020-09-20 22:20:13 UTC #24

This cover I use as an introduction of the characters as well as hint about the series and chapters within.

There's Banusi (Anubis). It shows his signature weapon, purple color (a color hint of background if you know what purple means in history), his lucky earring (important to the story later on), the scar on his arm (part of his backstory as well as a few other scars hidden here), and cuffs in his hand that are about his back story and about what happens in the first book.

There's Dawn she's shown here without her skin condition (cosmetic spell she's been self conscious about it her whole life at the start of the series is only a few months into accepting it and showing it, so kinda a hint at backstory), shows her ears and tail (werecat), her outfit is meant to show a form of purity/enslavement due to her backstory, and her position is meant to hint at her role in a prophecy/love story.

Then there's Silver. He's shackled to a throne with a dented crown since he is the Full Moon King everyone wants to control and is shackled to a prophecy he doesn't want anything to do with. He is hiding his blind eye (backstory reason), is wearing clothes that used to be nice, but have worn down over time (hint and more of his back story), and is shown with his albino look (backstory reasons for white skin and hair).

The logo in the back is the logo that will be on the side spine if it makes it to print. The dark colors help with the overall mood of the series.

elpenor 2020-09-21 02:52:39 UTC #25

pretty straightforwards. that's Vainglory. though I suppose I could expand upon her look here

for those of you unfamiliar with D&D, Vainglory's a tiefling. that means she has devilish blood somewhere in her distant ancestry. she doesn't like to talk about it.
as a tiefling, Vainglory has a barbed tail. while she's wearing her bespoke plate armor, her tail is tucked behind her right leg
Vainglory very much fancies herself a hero, and her religion (she's a cleric) celebrates heroism by incorporating capes into their standard fashion. Vainglory's furred cape is an important part of her look
speaking of her religion, her armor incorporates quite a bit of it. the colors - gold, red, and blue - are its standard colors, and the symbols on her besagews (underarm caps) are a pair of lips and a somewhat strangely-shaped blue moon, which are both standard symbols of the religion
Vainglory keeps her hair short so enemies have a harder time grabbing it. she is, after all, a combat cleric first and foremost (a War Cleric if you're familiar with D&D)
that weapon is her unnamed war pick, a +2 magic weapon that is extremely difficult to use for anyone but her. most creatures that try to pick it up will simply drop it. she's been using it for six or seven years now and has it tattooed in various places
speaking of - Vainglory has over 50 unique, consistent tattoos. yes, I draw them all every time. no, none of them are visible on the cover

thecrystalrook 2020-09-21 02:58:35 UTC #26

It's actually a page from one of the episodes of my manga. It shows the 3 main characters up that point as well as the planet they're currently on, with a transportation station in orbit

domisotto 2020-09-21 03:06:22 UTC #27

I can’t draw, so I asked someone to make mine. The main character is a florist, so it has a flower. The story is a romance, hence Mr. Abs.