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Old 03-22-2011, 10:33 PM   #19
Despanan
 
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Sugar Hill
Posts: 3,887
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_Morey View Post
So you take a single example from his work and use it as evidence that he's a bad artist? Amazing. Following that train of thought, any musical artist who has a bad song/album is a bad musical artist, any director who makes one bad movie is thus a bad director.
So you admit that's a shitty cover then? Good. Because it is. I can give you more examples if you like, that one is just particularly heinous.

This is also fucking awful:


Seriously, LOOK at it. First of all there's NO background, just a Photoshop filter and a liberal use of the blur tool surrounding the head. The color choice is AWFUL, the slime green clashing HORRIBLY with the more muted reds and oranges (but especially with the purple background), there is NO framing going on, the picture just seems to stop at the edges. It doesn't feel self-contained, or even expansive, it just looks unfinished. On top of that the weight of the picture is thrown off, see that tiny little corner where she's disappearing? since it's only in the left hand corner (and lighter than the rest of the picture) it pulls the eye over to the corner and AWAY FROM THE BOOK.

That stupid assed "A" does the same thing, sloping away and throwing the eye at the bottom left corner. Guy WASTED tons of space at the top, and then jammed WAY too much into the bottom. LAZY.

Also, look at the shadows on the syringe and the shadows on her face, they're inconsistent, you would think by looking at her ugly mug that the light source is coming from the top left, but the glint on the syringe har it coming from the middle/lower right. The hand also doesn't seem to be holding the syringe, it's just sorta floating there, no sense of weight. It doesn't seem to belong in the picture, due to awkward sketching and poor color choice.

I could go on, but why bother? These are extremely sub-par and you know it.

Honestly the only cover that you have that is any good is the hard-boiled vampire killers, and I don't think it was drawn by the same guy.

Quote:
Here's his website, you'll see that he's actually very talented...

http://www.mwaynemiller.com/
I saw that, I googled his name after I read your post. The stuff there is certainly better than what you've got for your book covers, but still not particularly impressive. Honestly, it looks like he should be featured in an upcoming installment of WTF D&D (or maybe he has been allready, I see he does art for RPGs).

In any case, I didn't say he was a bad artist, I said he was a shitty cover artist, which he is. Dude clearly knows nothing about framing, or what makes a dynamic, iconic image, he just knows how to draw weird shit with a moderate amount of skill (seriously, there are artists on DA who can draw circles around him, and would probably illustrate your books for FREE).

Quote:
I'd like to see you come close to making anything like any of his art?
1) One does not have to be able to produce art that surpasses/matches another piece of art to accurately criticize it. A film critic does not need to be able to direct a better film than Michael Bay to point out why Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen sucks.

2) I'm not a professional visual artist, I'm a writer, but lets play this game:

Here's some art a buddy of mine did for my website:


Notice how much better this looks than the previous two, though the actual line work is much simpler. Notice the framing, the balance, notice how well the colors work thematically and how the text looks like a part of the picture itself instead of computer font slapped over a drawing. NOTICE how every piece of this is working together to create the proper FEEL, how it makes you curious as to what this play is all about.

That is what a graphic should do, establish interest in the particular piece of writing. It should grab the reader's eye and be an extension of the work in question.

Here's another example:


That's a postcard graphic for my play Snow White Zombie Notice the clever use of negative space to create snow white in the glass coffin, notice how that same color is repeated both in the "coffee stain" mist and the moon, giving the piece balance and unity. Notice how the black gradually bleeds from straight black, to crosshatching, and into the stars in the text?

Honestly dude, based on your covers, I wouldn't buy either of those books. They look so sloppy and lazy and amateurish that I inevitably will subconsciously ascribe those qualities to the text without reading a single word. Pretty much any other normative reader will do the same.

Look dude, your boy 'aint the worst person to ever wield a #2 pencil, but he's clearly phoning this stuff in, or if not him, than the graphic artist you hired to color/format these covers is. Our Lady of Shadows, Fifteen Minutes, and Dark Surge are similarly terrible. Your banner at the top of the OP looks like it belongs on a Magic:the Gathering card. The first three books (Pain, Wine, and Beneath, from the OP) aren't too bad, but they are SHAMELESSLY aping Dave McKean.

Look I appreciate you guys doing the small, independent publisher thing, I really do, but you aren't doing yourself any favors with cover art like this, and really it's not hard to find good artists, cheap. Hell, my boy did it for chump change (which was GREAT as I was poor as hell at the time)

Quote:
I wasn't aware that this should be in the Shill forum. If an admin wants to move it there that would be fine.
I doubt it'll be moved if he hasn't already, the Admin here pretty much just deletes the occasional spammer and stops us from talking smack about Blueblood.

You might find people here more receptive to your press if you actually tried to be a part of the community instead of just exploiting the forums as free ad space. Your books DO seem to line up with the aesthetic around here.
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