Addison
Auror
Take a look at the great drawings and paintings in history. What is it that catches your eye? The technique? Partially, such as pointilism and splatter paint. But it's the lighting, shading and choice of colors. It's not one or the other that catches a viewer's eye it's how all the parts are in harmony with the other to give the full meaning of the picture.
If your cover art is like a tree, different images working their way up, try and make them drawn on vertical lines. If they stretch across the boo, horizontal lines. If it's a pic of a few characters and an amazing back ground make sure your characters aren't at the same height. Viewers will be staring at a wall. Vary the height, a soft circle or swirl. The swirl is a design of motion. It can carry the viewer from the character faces to the back ground. You also need to balance it. Don't make the background so wow that it out shines the characters or so wow that the viewers can't see it. Take a cover like the view out the window. The light and shading is continuous from the horizon to your nose. The deepening and lightening of shades and hues is consistent from far to near.
A cover isn't a flashy way of getting a reader's attention, a non-written slogan of "look at me!". It presents them with a little piece of the story, your illusion of reality, inside the book. Draw them to the picture you draw them to the book. (Warning, do not make your cover art a dynamic scene, or piece of a character, that is in no way shape or form going to appear in the story.) I say this from experience and truly hope it helps.
If your cover art is like a tree, different images working their way up, try and make them drawn on vertical lines. If they stretch across the boo, horizontal lines. If it's a pic of a few characters and an amazing back ground make sure your characters aren't at the same height. Viewers will be staring at a wall. Vary the height, a soft circle or swirl. The swirl is a design of motion. It can carry the viewer from the character faces to the back ground. You also need to balance it. Don't make the background so wow that it out shines the characters or so wow that the viewers can't see it. Take a cover like the view out the window. The light and shading is continuous from the horizon to your nose. The deepening and lightening of shades and hues is consistent from far to near.
A cover isn't a flashy way of getting a reader's attention, a non-written slogan of "look at me!". It presents them with a little piece of the story, your illusion of reality, inside the book. Draw them to the picture you draw them to the book. (Warning, do not make your cover art a dynamic scene, or piece of a character, that is in no way shape or form going to appear in the story.) I say this from experience and truly hope it helps.
