Typeface brainstorm

This is the start of my brainstorming for type ideas for my book cover. After looking at different script types and how the words intertwine with each other, I have decided that I would really like something like this for my book title as it looks mature and professional.
I would also like to have a type that could be relevant to the book itself, I think I will achieve this by having it in a Victorian style, as the novel itself is set in the Victorian era.
Not only does having a typeface such as this make the product appear more high end, I also feel that it makes it more attractive to an older audience, which coincides with my initial brief and is over all successful.

Artist Emulation

After producing this artist copy, I decided that I wanted to emulate it also. I decided to recreate another portrait in a similar style using the same technique as I had done to copy it. As I wanted the emulation to be relevant to my product, I decided that I would do a digital portrait of the Corpse Bride. I thought I would combine elements of the two, resulting in Tim Burton's design of Emily (the Corpse Bride) in the style of WojtekFus. 

I started off by sketching out the basic colours of the main portrait. I did this over a layer with the original sketch. The only thing that I don't like about the colour scheme is that there isn't much contrast, as all the tones are similar, just altered in saturation and luminosity. I think that this piece would benefit from some warmer tones to contrast with the cool shades of blue.

This is how it looked after I had blended the colours and altered the tone slightly with some hints of warmer colours. To alter the tone, I created an over lay layer, set it to a low opacity and worked some colours on top. After I had achieved my desired affect, I merged it with the layer below so that it was on the same layer as the digital painting. This way I could blend it in with the other colours using an oil brush set to a low paint intensity.

After blending the colours, I decided to add a basic background as a base. That way, I know what I was working with and what colours would look the most successful. In the end I decided to use oranges and yellows as they are the complimentary colours to blue and purple. 

I added her hair and the basic positioning of the flowers so that I could get a greater idea of colour and positioning of shapes.

I decided that the orange was too top heavy, and made the piece slightly unbalanced. To counter this I decided to add orange fragments to the bottom of the piece.
To get other fragments through out the piece, I merged all of the layers and duplicated it. With the duplicate copy, I then put a glass blur filter over it. Using a line selection tool, I then selected fragment-like pieces of the layer that I wanted to keep, and then inverted the selection (ctrl + shift + i) and removed the excess.

I added some glowing pieces to the final design. I wanted to tie in the theme of the moths/dissolving of Emily, so I set a glow over a large portion of the side, and had pieces of her design glow and fragment away.

Over all I am pretty happy with this emulation, however I Think that it could be improved by using an original design for Emily.
I will definitely look into designing a new look for her, as I am not keen on using Tim Burton's famous design in my product.

Artist Copy

This is the artists copy that I have produced of WojtekFus' digital portrait.  What I really love about this is the contrast between the crisp details off the face, and the out of focus expressionist background details. The bold brush strokes and vivid colours really add a feeling of movement and give motion to the piece. Here is the process I went through in order to create this artist copy.

I started off by drawing a rough sketch of the piece from observation. This was pretty simple as I used a large canvas, and was able to place both images side by side, comparing proportions and shape.

I lowed the luminosity of the background, as this allows me to have better judgement of tone withing the skin colour, as when it is too light it's difficult to form a realistic judgement of highlights and shadows.

Here is what it looked like after I had finished placing the rough colours. To do this I used the oil brush on a high opacity, with strong colour settings. This meant that any colour I applied would be more opaque and wouldn't immediately blend with the colours around it.

This is how it looked after I had blended the colours using a mixture of a water smudge tool, and the oil brush set to a lower paint density. To further progress the piece, I added a basic layout of colours and lines to get an idea of where what details would fall.

I further developed the background and hair by adding shape and more brush strokes into it. I also added more details into the face and added the 'warpaint'. It was here that I noticed that the tone of the skin was slightly off and would benefit from some colour adjustment. 

This is how the piece looked after altering the final colours. I did this on an overlay layer set to a low opacity. This allowed me to alter the warmth of the skin tones, but also keep the intensity minimal.
I also increased the glow of the back-light, and brought it further onto the model's cheek.
I think that the final stage really  brought the piece to the next level as it made it just that extra bit more accurate.

If I were to redo this artist copy, I think I would create more texture brushes, as I felt limited in terms of texture and brush strokes. Over all, I am pretty happy with the out come of my copy.

Layout development

These are some scamps so that I could experiment with the layout of my book cover, and what would reside on the cover.
I brainstormed initial ideas, and then narrowed them down to three main ideas.
Over all, ideas one and two are my most favourite, and I think that I will combine ideas from the both of them when it comes to designing my final product.
I want my cover to be quite pragmatic, so I may look into digital portraits and designs for Emily, as I am reluctant to use the same design as Tim Burton, as this will have too much connection to the motion picture, and so make my book seem like it's aimed towards a younger audience, and so break away from my initial brief.

I like the thought of having a continued illustration on both the front and back cover design, as I feel it makes the book's design more fluent and less rigid.
I would like to have the title at the top of the book, however if I explore portraits as my final design, having a top positioned title will create unsuccessful blank space, giving the book an unbalanced look.

I think when it comes to the blurb, I will experiment with alignment and layering.
I feel that a left alignment looks too rigid, and having a right alignment shaped around the back illustration may lower the legibility.
I might try and layer it so that the text over lays the image, however if I do this I will have to ensure that the background image doesn't contrast too much with the text, as that may make it more difficult to read.

When designing my cover, I must also take into account placement of institutional information, as they need to be clearly legible, and stand out from the rest of the design.
I might include information about things such as the publishing company, a short biography, and email addresses on the flaps of the dust jacket.

Drawings of subject matter

Here I have sketched out some ideas for subject matter. I started out with the original Tim Burton designs, so that I could annotate around them and use them as a starting point.

I am going to be avoiding using Emily (the corpse bride) on the front cover, as I want my book to have a more poetic quality and look more high-end.
To achieve this, I think I'll be using subtle hints of the story but in a different form than the obvious. To do this, I think I will incorporate the use of moths as they are an iconic symbol used in the film to represent freedom and release.
I played around with the idea of having a face on the wings, or maybe even each wing being a different face.
Emily as a corpse and alive, perhaps.

Scamps of others

Here I have completed 12 thumbnail scamps of other's book cover designs. I have ranged the style, composition and genre of covers I scamped as so to avoid being too heavily influenced by another designer's style.
I like the use of negative shapes. For example, the cover of The Lord Of The Rings, The Two Towers. I think it's really clever how they have incorporated the hand and the ring in the design.
I experiment with a similar idea when I come to designing my cover.