23 réponses à ce sujet

[ElectricZ]

So, in addition to causing a panic over deleting MA-rated stories and giving the layout an overhaul which has been less than popular, the good folks at Fanfiction.net have added the ability to add "covers" to individual fanfics. Not to sound like a hipster, but  some of us were whipping up covers before it was cool. Anyway, it's a great idea, except for the fact that an individual cover comes across about this size:

http://ffcdn2012.fic...mage/227815/75/

So... until they update again and make the covers clickable, here's a thread to post your own covers and other fan art so they can be enjoyed without a magnifying glass...

My own, to start!













So what else we got out there? Don't be shy! Strut your stuff!

(edit- made pics clickable)

Modifié par ElectricZ, 01 août 2012 - 12:28 .

[ElectricZ]

Having a hard time getting back into writing so I decided to whip up another cover. Certainly I can't be the only one out there doing this?



The Peanut Butter Principle

Modifié par ElectricZ, 31 juillet 2012 - 01:04 .

[ElectricZ]

And one last one...



A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Annihilation

Modifié par ElectricZ, 01 août 2012 - 12:24 .

[lillitheris]

By the looks of it, you might be the only one Or, well, I don’t think I have the skill to put anything together…

If I commissioned cover art for “Unity”, it’d probably simply be the classic pyramid of characters, with Eevy and Liara embracing in the middle, perhaps above the smoldering Earth, and the rest of the cast spreading around them.

Edit: of yours, I prefer L&B and Tomorrow’s Dawn.

Modifié par lillitheris, 01 août 2012 - 01:03 .

[ElectricZ]

I've seen a few other covers out there... I do hear a lot from people wishing they had the skill to whip up a cover. Mine aren't particularly fancy and consist mostly of different screenshots that are merged together. It only takes a certain amount of technical skill to do that. Having the talent to actually create a cover from scratch is something I certainly don't have. I'm just putting together clipart, and I think anybody could do it if they have a computer.

So, here's a quick and dirty guide on how to make a passable fanfic cover using mostly screenshots.

1. Get some photomanipulation software. MS Paint will not cut it. Adobe Photoshop is the bomb if you can afford it, but if not, try GIMP. It's open source and has 99% of what you need.

2. Learn how to use layers and cut out an object in a picture. With these two skills you can take multiple pieces of art and make them fit seamlessly together.

3. Come up with an idea. With all of my covers, I tried to think of the central theme of the story and how I would distill it into a single image. If it were a movie, could there be a single frame that would represent it? I would also think about the tagline, and sometimes that would inspire the cover. The bottom line is try to keep it simple. For example, in "Tomorrow's Dawn" the focal point of the story is Tali trying to repair Legion after its been destroyed when she's actually glad its gone. I really wanted to convey that, but there were no screenshots of Tali or Legion together.

4. Google Internet Search your subject. I needed pictures of Tali and Legion. Google is full of them. Searching through the available screenshots for your subject is also a great way to get ideas.

Deactivated Legion in AI Core:


Note that in Legion's case I couldn't use the picture because it was too small. You will always want to work with the largest resolution picture you can find, with as much background as possible. You can always shrink or crop an image. You can never make it bigger or replace missing data. So I fired up youtube videos of Legion's reactivation and used that instead, but the pic gave me the idea. I just needed a picture of Tali looking sad:



5. Fire up your image software and get to work. In this case, I had to mask out Tali and shrink her down to an appropriate size, and flip her horizontally so she'd be facing the right direction. Then I removed her body from the hips down so it would look like she was behind the platform Legion was lying on. By cropping the picture a bit it looked like Legion was lying on a table in a lab as opposed to a bench with a back wall. I darkened the picture for mood and drew in some white geth blood and added burn marks (again, tutorials are your friend) to make it look like Legion had gotten the crap beat out of him.



6. After that came the titles and blurb. I just had to experiment with different fonts and spacing. If you feel you have no such talent, go take a look at some movie posters or book covers for inspiration. Crop it to the proper dimensions, throw on some text and Voila!



it does take some practice, but once you get a hang of the software and what it can do for you, you can whip up a simple cover (like "Just Like Old Times") in about an hour. More complex covers take more time and effort, but I think they're worth it.

Modifié par ElectricZ, 01 août 2012 - 06:06 .

[Samtheman63]

good work man

[dorktainian]

sorry i'm kinda new at this - tried my hand at a cover - very basic.

[ElectricZ]

May be my monitor, Dorktanian, but your cover is really low contrast and dark and hard to see. But the design is interesting.

[lillitheris]

^ Agree, I’d bump up the contrast both for the text and the figure in the background.

@ElectricZ: Oh, the number of things that I could learn if I had the time to invest…

[fainmaca]

Well, after seeing this, I gave it a go myself, and here's the end result. Please bear in mind this is the first time I have ever used any image editing software, so be nice!

[ElectricZ]

fainmaca wrote...

Well, after seeing this, I gave it a go myself, and here's the end result. Please bear in mind this is the first time I have ever used any image editing software, so be nice!

That's pretty sharp, Fainmaca! I like the color scheme and layout, Shepard and Jack overlooking the city on fire... and Harby hanging out over a planet that looks like it's boiling away is quite striking. Is this compiled from screenshots? Very nice!

[fainmaca]

ElectricZ wrote...
That's pretty sharp, Fainmaca! I like the color scheme and layout, Shepard and Jack overlooking the city on fire... and Harby hanging out over a planet that looks like it's boiling away is quite striking. Is this compiled from screenshots? Very nice!

Thanks! I have a collection of images I trawl through from time to time to help me with my writing. I already had the image of the Reaper and Jack in my folders (Reaper is from a Beacon vision screenshot, while Jack I believe is from the Psychopath trailer). The background is two images, both found on a Google Image trawl, one using the words 'Red Star' and the other one using 'Burning City'.

My real trial was Shepard. I found it really hard to find a view of Shepard from the back that I could use. I tried out the shot of him from the ME3 announcement trailer, but that was just too blue and I don't have the knowhow to tweak it. Other images defined him a little too much for me. Because of the way I write this fic, I have not described Shepard in any way, as he needs to be blank to imprint a reader's own Shepard on him. So for that I needed to make sure that you couldn't see his face. In the end I'd given up on finding the perfect image, and put in the announcement trailer image. Then, as I did an image search for the logo, I spotted this one. It may not be clear in my image, but Shepard is reloading his gun, as this was a screenshot of him on the Dead Reaper backing away from Husks. The Dead Reaper's lighting was just perfect to give him the red tinge.

I'm not sure about the text in the centre, but can't really think of a better way to lay it out. Previous versions of the image had a little Normandy zooming in on the right and a Citadel on the left, but I felt that crowded it a little too much.

I'm also trying to think of some taglines for it, make it really movie poster-like.

Modifié par fainmaca, 23 août 2012 - 03:48 .

[Prizzma]

Fainmaca that is a pretty cool cover image! And for being your first time doing it pretty darn good. Did you think of maybe putting an image of the citadel behind Harby? Nothing giant but somthing to show the importance of it to your story maybe.

Oh and ElectricZ the image for "Friends like these" made me laugh when i figured out the "sun" was a pizza lol Funny story btw =)

[fainmaca]

Prizzma wrote...

Fainmaca that is a pretty cool cover image! And for being your first time doing it pretty darn good. Did you think of maybe putting an image of the citadel behind Harby? Nothing giant but somthing to show the importance of it to your story maybe.

Thanks! Actually, you've just given me an idea I'll try out. I'll fiddle around and see what I can put together.

[ElectricZ]

fainmaca wrote...

Prizzma wrote...

Fainmaca that is a pretty cool cover image! And for being your first time doing it pretty darn good. Did you think of maybe putting an image of the citadel behind Harby? Nothing giant but somthing to show the importance of it to your story maybe.

Thanks! Actually, you've just given me an idea I'll try out. I'll fiddle around and see what I can put together.

I dunno -- I kind of like the planet... I think it's understated and more mysterious, more inline with the title of the story.

[lillitheris]

I like it this way, too. The composition is nice. Plus the Citadel might evoke some unpleasant associations…

[fainmaca]

Those are good points. I may still try to put something together with the Citadel, but I may just start a new image for that.

The reason why i think having the citadel and a star/planet like that in it is a good idea is because (SPOILERS) in my fic, the Reapers are articially ageing stars to the point of collapse to create the power core at the centre of a new Citadel-type Relay to bring the Reaper armada back from Dark Space.

I don't know, maybe having the image as is, with the Reaper hovering over a darkened celestial object like this is evoactive enough of that aspect of the story.

[ManUnderMask]

Man, I have such envy for people who can create things like this.

[ElectricZ]

ManUnderMask wrote...

Man, I have such envy for people who can create things like this.

You never know until you try!

Here's a cover I saw today that I think is simple yet well done:

http://ffcdn2012.fic...age/267919/180/

Simple in layout and concept and the mood fits the story's title well. Plus it seems to pull off the easy-bake "slap some screenshots together" philosophy well.

[FahRENheit06]

For one-shots I just sort of throw random crap in there, but for longer fics I generally feel bad when I'm being too generic. Couple of simple covers for my two longer Mass Effect fics, Officially Unofficial and Ruthless Calculus.





- Ren

Modifié par FahRENheit06, 28 août 2012 - 12:09 .

[ElectricZ]

FahRENheit06 wrote...

For one-shots I just sort of throw random crap in there, but for longer fics I generally feel bad when I'm being too generic. Couple of simple covers for my two longer Mass Effect fics, Officially Unofficial and Ruthless Calculus.



- Ren

Very nice. Again, simple but effective. Nice choice for the fonts, too. I always get lazy when it comes to the fonts, just using what's available in GIMP. Where did you pick those up?

[FahRENheit06]

Thanks! I just recently discovered how to look at larger versions of the FFN covers (Slow Ren is slow, derp) which is why I stuck with a more simple treatment so the tiny thumbnail would be legible.

dafont.com is a fantastic site. For personal use it's a treasure trove of good stuff. A good chunk of the fonts even have free/reasonable commercial licenses attached, which makes me happy when I find something for a client.

- Ren

[MrChowderClam]

[ElectricZ]

Cooked up another one in an attempt to get the creative juices flowing...



vas Normandy

Modifié par ElectricZ, 25 mars 2013 - 03:38 .