Why my covers suck. · 4:26pm Oct 25th, 2016
Some people have sent me messages asking about why I have such terrible cover art. I found one of my descriptions, and posted it to dirty whore. When I did, I realized that I never explain my cover images.
Take CV:C. It is a single, thick line joining five smaller ones. It represents the characters in the story with their paths. It's a wing in bondage, it's fractured glass, it's a damaged crown, and it's broken horns. It's drawn all over a bleak, grey canvas that represents the setting. But it's traveling up, moving towards the top of the picture. Some of the lines start close, and move away from each other. But they all end up together in the end, unified and stronger. The whole arrangement is simple, sharp, and dangerous to those that aren't part of it. It's contained in the canvas, but it isn't the whole thing, the empty space represents the bits of the story that aren't part of that story line, but are needed for the story to exist. It's not pretty, but it represents.
I've had this particular pic up here since the beginning, but everybody always tells me I need better pictures for my stories. I haven't changed it, even when I've found much more attractive pictures. Maybe I could use better pictures. But all my pictures represent something. Some of them are obvious, and some are much more subtle. I'm not an artist, but I *am* a hipster. I'm too damn proud to use a picture without a real connection to the story.
Even though Dirty Whore had a different pic to begin with, the pic was one that the story was based off of in entirety. I didn't feel guilty about that picture at all, but someone didn't like it. So I made one that fit my style. Ugly, simple, and meaningful. There's more in it than is in the chapter, the chapter only explains the colors. Not the swirls, shapes, the blending, all the rest that's part of the whole picture.
I'm not opposed to putting *real* artwork as a cover, I just refuse to do so unless there is a connection. And some of my other ones aren't nearly as graceful, R-D is just an awful cover, it makes me sick looking at it, it's an example of try to hard without style. But so is the story, so I don't change it. I actually really like the characters emotions in the pic for Spike has a really bad day. Their forms are awful, but their poses and shape really feel like the presentation for me. And I love how they're messed up inside, all tangled and leaning into each other. And Rarity struggling to keep herself above them... And in clean corners, how the "twilight corner" isn't clean at all, but smeared and grainy. It's the little things I like, the things that other people just don't get.
But yeah. I write these stories mostly for me, and the artwork is for them and not for anything else. I could use better pics, but they'd need a connection. So that's why my covers suck. Just letting y'all know.
I understood the general idea behind them, although I don't think I ever thought specifically about it, with the exception of the cover for Spike has a really bad day.
I didn't get the meaning behind CV:C at all, though. Just that it was abstract and symbolic of something.
I quite like your style of cover art.
... I like your cover art.
Well that's some interesting info about your covers. Huh. The more you know.
By the way do you know when you'll update some of your older stories?