Opinions on adventure front cover layout...

[torstan]

I like this version better. The jade statue is a bit of an issue - it's in a very different style to the rest - almost photo-real. It has a white outline on it too that needs to be removed - at the moment it looks like it's been badly cropped and that hurts the overall look. Perhaps give it a drop shadow as well to connect it to the cover a little? I like the use of an overall gradient glow on the background to add interest - but at the moment it's highlighting Acacia Games rather than the title. I'd change the glow to the title to bring the viewer's eye in.

The text looks good, and read better now. It works at the thumbnail size - which is important for use on Drivethru RPG and other online pdf sites. I'd move it down a little and give your name a bit more spacing to fill out some of the dead space on the bottom half. Also - perhas up the opacity of your stock art silhouettes on the cover - they're pretty cool, but I totally missed them the first time round.

[mearrin69]

Thanks for the comments.

TBH I also sort of copied the glow surrounding the statue from the way Paizo calls out its figures on its books. Will try a drop shadow to see how it works...might make it feel a little more integrated. I think the semi-photoreal style (I used a real statue as a ref for the painting and probably should have stopped rendering sooner) may be less of an issue with more developed cover art in place.

Good thought on the glow. It doesn't need to be so bright at the top. I left it bright so the black text on the logo stood out better but you're right that it calls it out too much. I'll play with it a bit. The text spacing as well. I'd like to have the art be a larger part of the cover so that'll push the spacing a bit.

On the stock art thing, do you mean the characters that are overlaid? I bumped them down that far so that it wasn't too distracting. I didn't want to be garishly overt with the "THIS IS CHINESE" thing. You think it's okay to bump it up? BTW, this is a scan of a calligraphy piece my Chinese teacher made for me after I made him a gift of a roll of nice rice paper. It's an aphorism that means, essentially, "Where there's a will, there's a way" along with my name and some other things. It's really cool to be able to use it this way. More personal than stock art!
M

Edit: BTW, I didn't see Ramah's comments when I was making this post. Definitely want more action in the picture. This one, more fully rendered, is supposed to be a chapter opener...not the exciting cover art! You guys are going to help me make the best adventure cover EVER! Thanks again for all of the feedback.

[mearrin69]

Long time coming back to this thread. If you've seen my other art preview posts you'll know I hired a veteran comic book artist to do some illustrations for this adventure. I decided to take one of his finished illustrations and redo the mockup. The results are below. I like it but want to wait until he finishes another scene before I decide to use this one - this one is an ambush scene, pencils attached below. The current one would be sorta epic but the ambush scene would make the viewer wonder what was going on and hopefully be interested in learning more. What do you guys think?
M

[Jaxilon]

Well depending on the adventure...the first one looks like a mass combat is going to be at the heart of it all. The other illustration gives the feeling of more cloak and dagger ninja type stuff. I guess it depends on what you are going for. As a GM it would depend on what my party is made up of. Personally, we don't do a lot of mass combat because well, it tends to not be as fun and it bogs the story (this is just my opinion however). They both seem good, just depends on how you want to pitch it.

[Midgardsormr]

I like how we get to see all of what I presume are the PCs doing something appropriate to their class in the first one. Plus, if the ambush is going to figure into the module, I'm not sure you want to spoil the surprise by putting it on the cover.

[mearrin69]

Midgardsormr, that is a *very* good point.
M