The Kingmaker Cover Art

[Jenurik Name]

I like the first one. It is definitely eye-catching, the details of the silver leaves and the crown are exquisite.

However, I feel that the blood might be too heavy-handed. I think the effect would be more impactful if it was subtler - what if you took out the blood on the crown and most of the tree, but had a single droplet of blood suspended from the end of the rightmost leaf?

The crown and tree was what immediately caught my attention, and I was aloof to the blood. The ideal experience for a reader browsing for books I'm imaging would be this:

1.) Be drawn in by the crown and tree. (This design is more than unique and evocative enough to stop a browsing reader in his tracks)
2.) Then, upon closer inspection, possibly even days later, notice the blood dripping from the leaf. It's more chilling.

Also, I think that the green-shaded background might be better being pure black.

 

[e r i]

Both designs are good. I think what people are responding to is that the first design has 'better composition' and uses the whole space (like others have pointed out, the second one seems a bit empty, like you're not utilising the space). I like the standard composition of the first design, but I like the colours and rendering of the metal ornament of the second one better.

And this is gong to be a tad hard because the length of your title constrains the font you can use, but I would try and find a font that's taller, perhaps. The size of the title and your name are almost comparable, and I (personally) find it off putting - because surly this is about the story and how intriguing the story is, not really about you, if that makes any sense. In addition I feel the fonts lack weight in contrast to the great metal rendering you have going for the ornament. It feels like it's pasted on top of the image (which is what working design in software does, but you know what I mean) and not particularly well integrated with the rest of the cover design.

Wow, I read over this and it sounds really harsh. No hard feelings - like I said, I like to colours and the overall vibe of the second one Curious to see what you're going to do with everyone's feedback!

 

[Laurence]

Great work. My thought upon seeing it was that there should be a tad more space around the edges (and that the blood didn't match the feel of the tree but you've changed that version anyway.)