April 2024

Book Covers. A Rant. . . Of Sorts.

Creating a fine looking book cover is both fun and frustrating. I have tried to avoid A.I. art for so long, but sometimes the only place to find what I need can only be found by photo manipulation. Which when I had Photoshop I had no problem creating . . . alas, now that I am no longer a college student I cannot afford Adobe's steep fees. 

Still, finding or creating a male model without a beard is nearly impossible. I have spent hours trying to manipulate a variety of A.I. programs to just give me a golden-haired male, with hair to his shoulders, lavender eyes and NO beard.

​Forget getting lavender so I settle for blue. Often the hair is far too feminine as with the sample  here. If I had Photoshop I could have removed the beard and been done, but that still requires a lot of manipulation to keep the skin and shadows correct . . . it's just so sad.  

After weeks of creation, I finally have covers that I like but, Aerrvin is a main character and I still have not gotten a picture that represents him. Years ago I found this model of a guy in jeans who somewhat reminds me of the character, but of course I have no permission to use this photo for a cover.  When I say a young man in my search I get 12 year old boys. When I don't, I get scruffy faces. When I say Fairies or Elves, they still come out all wrong. (See the male in purple.)

​It would be wonderful if my books would have been picked up by a publisher back when I began trying to get my fantasy series published, then they would have found the perfect solution. But such  was not to be, so I self-published. Then years later someone pointed out an error with my cover . . . the girl was missing a toe! My original intent was to not use any faces at all. And even that did not work as planned. This picture was collected years before A.I. was a thing being offered to everyone. But yes she has no big toe. I simply missed seeing the error. Otherwise, I think the photo is stunningly lovely. 

That is why I am now creating all new covers. Well one reason. Since I now have six books in the series I also want all of the books to look nice when sitting together on a bookshelf. So back to my current predicament all of the books have a character on the cover, except for two.

"Aerrvin, where are you?" Mara lamented.
(See book three of Tales of Destiny due out in November 2024)

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