About cover art for My Life As A Bipedal Quadruped. · 12:30pm Dec 11th, 2016
... Why is the lifespan of a blog post's comment-section rarely longer than 18 hours? Is it considered bad form to have a longer conversation in these places? Does anyone else find this odd? At least I welcome comments on posts from yesterday, and the week before, and earlier than that, so if you read this and you think you have something to say, don’t be shy. Though I guess in some ways, a blog post is already asking you to take time from your busy life and pay attention to it, so asking for you to keep your eye on it for a longer period could come across as a bit daring.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about cover art for My Life As A Bipedal Quadruped.
It doesn’t have one... that’s fairly obvious though.
Now, I’m not really used to having money to burn, which is one of the main reasons I don’t know the specifics of how one goes about commissioning an artist, and I also wasn’t expecting MLAABQ to become as popular or well-received as it has (really appreciate all the compliments, everyone. It’s tough being an intern, so being showered by praise every now and then means a lot to me 
). So I never really had any plans for cover art. Now I’m starting to feel that it’s time to change that.
I’m also something of a lurker who doesn’t like forcing his presence upon anyone, which is another reason for why something like how to get some cover art has slipped me by.
Detsella Morningdew has been really kind in offering to make some pro-bono, and I feel that recognition for being so cool with my wishy-washy response to the offer is definitely warranted. We were talking, and I got some feedback for my idea for a cover pic (and I believe that Snuffy and I had a conversation about it too).
So let’s start talking about the actual potential cover pic. The best cover pic I can think of when it comes to MLAABQ would be this:
There’s a bright sunset. The intense yet relaxing orange kind that cowboys ride into. There’s a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville, with the camera pointed towards the sunset, making everything seem darkened, with unimportant features being all black, and ponies being more just darkened.
On the top of the hill is an empty wheelchair, with Gabe walking away from it, and the rest of the cast, or at least the important figures, standing by the base of the hill, backs turned against the camera, waiting for her.
So the symbolism would be that Gabe is leaving her old and lonely life behind, being physically restored, and well on her way to being emotionally restored as well with her approaching the ponies. The sunset normally symbolizes the end of a story, but it’s partially reversed, in that she’s walking away from the sunset, rather than riding into it, so that her old life ends, and her new one begins.
Variations could include Nurse Redheart walking by Gabe and guiding her with a foreleg towards the crowd waiting for her, or perhaps Celestia or Twilight doing so with a wing.
Another variation could perhaps be to move the camera a bit, so that it’s partially behind the ponies, making Gabe approach a bit from the left (moving left to right in a 2D-space often being subconsciously associated with progress). That way, you might also be able to fit in some inviting smiles on the ponies waiting by the base of the hill.
What do you think? Is this a good idea for a cover art? What image-related skills would be the most appropriate for a pic like this? Would it be require a lot of skill to pull off (and would it subsequently cost a fortune)? Do you think it needs some tweaking? Do you have any other ideas?
Please tell me what you think 
PS: Oh, I almost forgot! For those of you who doesn't know what Gabe looks like, here's a picture of her as she would look in a 'pristine' condition, or to someone who doesn't notice her somewhat concealed artificial parts. https://cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/gnf3-1473534507-238709-full
There is no way on fimfiction to subscribe to interesting blog or comment threads.
So, unless your post is specifically quoted you get no notification a thread you may be interested in has updated.
The feed notification drops off the top of the feed and is intermingled with authors you follow new stories, stories added to groups you're a member of, ...
Yes, in principle you can scroll down, but...
It would be truly nice to have a place which merged blogs/... you've commented on and let you easily click through.
Otherwise, once they're off the top of the feed, they become impossible to find.
I like the cover pic ideas, though my ability to realise them is unfortunately zero. :)
Considering your cover art will be displayed in a relatively small window your idea, while nice, may not be an optimal use of the limited space available.
The concept sounds solid, but I think you'll have to compress it a bit.
On the discussions that peter out, I suspect it comes from the structure of the site not really being friendly to longer discussions under blog-posts. Going to check the comments under a post from somebody else is a minor annoyance, and that is usually enough to kill off discussions.
Personally, while I like the concept, keep in mind that this is what will draw in new viewers. So something that will be pertinent for the first few chapters is what I'd recommend. Perhaps the same idea but with Redheart or Studded assisting Gabe while she's still without her own mobility.
While it's never hidden, you don't want new readers going in already knowing the end of the story. Eve if the end image is only a metaphorical scene from the end.
4335733 Yeah, some sort of place for more long-term discussions that isn't a story's comment-section would be nice. Blogs, as we already noted, only live for a few hours to a few days tops, and interesting discussions in group-forums are also quickly drowned out by the sheer volume of other threads and just simple shitposting. Either that, or the group-forums are ghost towns.
That's okay, I just like hearing that my ideas might not be totally up against the walls.
4335738 I dunno, I liked that neon light-show in Bats
4335743
Hmm. Sadly, you might have a point there. Do you have any ideas? Something in the same spirit, but which fits better into the window, perhaps?
Yeah. Again, sadly, you're probably right.
4335748 Well, the first chapter is almost an adventure— Something the story leaves behind pretty quickly before settling into slice-of-life. So a picture that captures the very first chapter might leave people disappointed.
What would you include, in detail? If you feel like taking the time to think about it, I mean. Do you think it's better not to show Gabe's prostheses, and could the image be tweaked to include that instead while keeping the concept?
4335765
Honestly, I think you had the imagery just about perfect. The only thing I would change from your concept is that Gabe is letting her friends help her rather than already being whole again.
Edit: in more detail, I picture a fallen wheelchair on the downward slope of a hill with a setting sun behind it. Gabe is leaning on Redheart as they walk up the hill towards their friends. I see this as displayed from the side, so you can see the welcoming expressions of her friends.
4335769 Yeah. That's a good point. Which pony or ponies would you have help her though? Nopony ended up feeling as her main emotional crutch. At least not to me.
4335772
Emotionally, I'd say Readheart. Physically it was Studded armor. In the first 10 chapters they provided the primary support. Or at least in my opinion.
Granted, I think the image would work with any other character, even Spike or the CMC.
4335777 Maybe having Studded standing behind the wheelchair, clearly having been the one pushing it, and having Redheart helping her out of it.
Then there might be the question of why she's getting out of the wheelchair to begin with. I suppose you can cover her lack of limbs up by having Redheart between Gabe and the camera, but it might be weird to not show the protagonist.
then you can additionally play some trick with the light, seeing as how they're probably dark outlines against the sunset. With some visual trickery, it might not be all that obvious that Gabe's missing limbs like that. What do you think?
4335772
4335769
Aburi's idea is pretty nice and would be something that can be drawn in a compact form.
As for the characters, I think Nurse Redheart is pivotal in the first chapters and still quite present later. She is also an easily recognizable pony which adds an immediate connection for new readers.
4335779 Do you still think that the rest of the cast can fit into the image, waiting invitingly for Gabe? Also, good point about Redheart.
4335783
Maybe? I'm not really that talented at drawing or image composition, so you'll have to ask the artist. With proper perspective, it should be possible to do that, even if the whole cast will be quite large. You will probably end up either with very small images of the other ponies or with a very crowded scene.
4335778
I would suggest against having anyone by the wheelchair, as it's symbolizing what Gabe's leaving behind.
And no need to play tricks with the camera. Gabe showed herself to be VERY adaptable. I have no doubts that she could move well enough with a living prop on one side.
4335786 Noted. I feel I've gotten some good advice already on what to bring up with an artist. Me happy
4335791 Good points, and Redheart could be walking on her 'legged' side, holding Gabe up with a foreleg around her. Perhaps have Armor just in a more prominent position from the crowd.
Because unless you are very, very popular on this site, you won't get a lot of attention from your blog posts, which is why blog posts's life span is less than a day.
4335733 I don't believe the head technician of this site is around anymore. I've sent a pm to the person, but they haven't responded, and it's been weeks.
4335802
I helped.
4335804 Hmm, I always wanted my works, rather than myself, to be the popular thing. Oh well. At least I get good feedback most times anyway.
4335805 I heard that most energy when it comes to working on this site is going towards that turning-fimfic-into-a-general-fanfic-site-project.
4335808 Yes you did
As someone who's mistakenly postponed reading a lot of fics because of their cover art, let me say that the #1 rule of picking the right cover art is that it must try as hard as possible to evoke the same feeling which characterizes the story.
The problem I see with your imagery is that I don't associate the emotional impact of "cowboy sunsets" with what I feel from this story and. While I could be visualizing something different from what you are, I think it would have pushed this fic down the priority list I maintain within my "read it later" list by allowing other fics that feel more ambiguous to jump the queue on the chance that they may be "ordinary slice of life" or "one-man/woman first contact" tone-wise. (My expectations for what a sunset would mean, as primed by other media, would drown out what you intend it to mean.)
I'd try asking your readers what words and phrases characterize the story (essentially, to free-associate to figure out what you managed to communicate to them successfully) and then design an image which places those aspects at the forefront.
4335937 Hmm. I would've thought I'd get one of those popped-balloon-sagging-emotions moments from reading that, but my interest must've been caught by your words. My brain thinks this sounds like a good observation, so maybe this is my guts backing my brain up.
As a quick note, I associate sunsets with happy endings, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade-style (I know Professor Schneider just died there, but I didn't really care
). What do you associate sunsets with when it comes to themes and metaphors and such?
And that association things sounds like a good idea. Too bad it seems like this blog post is dying off (seriously), and it might be a bit early to write a new one. In preparation for the next chapter, perhaps. What do you associate MLAABQ with? What do you like about it and what feels does it coax out of you?
This could be fun
4335772
Redheart. While not a crutch, she has been rather consistently been Gabe's greatest emotional support. Almost every time the stress, be it physical or mental, approached the limits of what Gabe could handle, Redheart was there to give Gabe a moment to catch her breath.
4336038
I associate sunsets with "drama, adventure, western, hero" while I perceive this story as "personal, struggle, invention, slice of life, friendship" (With extra weight given to "invention" because of how uncommon it is and how well you're pulling it off in this context.)
The main mismatch is that, for me, the sunset implies drama and/or the type of story where the adventure is the focus and the main character a lens for it, while, here, the story is a slice of life, the main character is the focus, and events are a lens for her character. (Tag-wise, I associate sunsets with "Drama" and "Adventure" where this story is "Slice of Life" and something else which I use "Human" as a proxy for because it's "slice of life in the context of making new friends" and filtering for Human helps to rule out "slice of life in the context of well-established friendships".)
...or, to put it another way, I generally associate sunsets with "person vs. nature or active antagonist" stories while this is a "person seeking a new equilibrium" story.
As for free-associating the cover itself, the first image that pops to mind when I'm asked to characterize this story is Gabe in a sitting position, having removed her prototype forelimb and using some kind of tool to tinker with it before putting it back on. (That's how my mind most concisely sums up her state of existence and the aspects of her driving conflict which differ from the common elements which always pop to mind when I see a "Human" tag and a "Human in Equestria, can't go home" synopsis.)
There's actually quite a lot of meaning rolled into that for how quickly it popped to mind. For example, the sitting position requires her hind leg to be more than a mere "human prosthesis" because, otherwise, she'd topple over. Thus the combination of the sitting position and the tinkering with her forelimb shows great progress, combined with an unfinished journey of invention.
4336116 That's true. She needs to make some more appearances in the story. I just gotta make it feel something other than gratuitous, now that Gabe doesn't need help in the same way. Maybe if Gabe travels Equestria to help the relatively few ponies who really do need prosthetic limbs as this new magical technology is being adopted, Redheart could accompany her?
Anyway, I don't know if you've read the comments, but ssokolow had some interesting input (and I see he responded just now). So I have some more questions, If you feel like joining in that is; which emotions do you associate with the proposed image? Which ones with the actual story? And what would you think is appropriate in a cover art pic for MLAABQ?
4336124
Thank you
You make good points. I'm still kind of in love with the image I've talked about, because I do think that the comforting and emotional healing-parts are important elements of the story, but maybe because it's mostly good as an independent pretty picture, rather than cover art. I didn't quite get the "person seeking a new equilibrium"-part though
Oooh, your proposed image caught my interest. Especially the "the combination of the sitting position and the tinkering with her forelimb shows great progress, combined with an unfinished journey of invention"-part. Although now I feel that there's another thing I need to keep in mind when I kick off the adventure in part 3. Thanks for pointing that out, even though it might perhaps make the story more demanding to 'get right'.
So, the image I see, is perhaps Gabe sitting by a desk, her metallic foreleg before her, either detached or her just holding it there, with her inserting a gem or some contraption into the hoof where it's hollow. A screwdriver on her mouth, and a look of concentration on her. With papers full of scribbles and notes around her. What do you think about her eye though? Eyepatch or prosthetic eye? Neither might be a bit gruesome for the cover of an E-rated story
4336188
Ssokolow raises some good points. I myself feel that your idea is more an artwork suited for the conclusion of the fic, rather than the first thing you see. When we start the fic, we don't know Gabe is going to get new prosthetics, much less how much of a massive improvement they are going to be compared to modern day prosthetics. Rather, what we know when we read the title and summary is that a disabled person gets thrown into Equestria without a magical new set of limbs. I think that the coverart should reflect that, because that's the struggle we watch Gabe go through, and the struggle that I'd like to believe got most of us intrigued by the story to begin with.
To me, the coverart should have Gabe in the wheelchair, as it symbolizes the struggle we will read about, with Redheart and Armor helping her out to represent the new life she is going to live. We don't need to see how she will end up living her new life from the coverart, that's what we're going to read the fic for. We just need to know what situation she is in to get us curious about how she is going to get out of it.
4336239 *slowly nods*. Yeah. I guess I forgot about the struggle with being disabled. I decided to make that a big thing because it would be a bit insensitive to have her disabled just for the sake of making her a cyborg. So I approached the struggling-with-disability element partly as something new and interesting to the HiE-formula, partly as a chore to write with the great reward of finally having not only finally my cyborg pony OC, but having her character well established and her cyborgness justified. Considering that, I guess I might've lost sight of how well that part came to be, and how much people appreciated it.
I'm gonna sleep in the coverart-thing.
4336188
It's one of various names I've come up with over the years for a certain general type of plot: Basically, main character gets irrevocably pulled out of a life they're used to and the driving conflict which defines the story arc is them building a new life for themselves. (eg. making friends, finding employment, etc.)
4336424 Ah, yeah that's kind of needed as a category on this site, and MLAABQ certainly falls into that.
Hmm...
On this word association thing, I associate dawn and dusk woth change. As this is a still image, the image is identical as sunrise or sunset. I would probably see the initial proposed image as sunrise though, bringing hope and transition to mind.
Which actually fits my impression of the story.
Edit: I do like the tinkerer image as well, but that one does not have much on an emotional aspect for me. It would have to be very well crafted to show the proper balance of struggle, progress and hope that characterize the story.
4336188
Sorry for forgetting to respond to this.
My first impulse is to go with the false eye (choosing a look for it is still open to consideration) because the eyepatch feels like it would have too high a chance of being mistaken for signifying more than just "she's wearing an eyepatch" when the absence of something as simple as a glass eye is paired with the presence of much more complex prosthetics.
4338943 4338989 Noted about the eye.
Alright, so the story has emotions, struggles, sadness, hope, inventions, friendship, and the theme of starting a new life, in addition to having humor, probably more things. I might need to rethink what I'm aiming to include in the cover image
4339136
Oh, yea... a comment on the eye.
I suggest avoiding it entirely if you go that way. Use a monocle-style magnifying glass headset to hide her missing eye.
4340455 You're probably right. I felt I was pushing it as it was, having that the whole empty eye-socket thing a story with an E-rating and no gore-tag
I'm really sorry. I read your message, and went to this discussion area, and completely forgot to check back in at the end of the week, mostly due to getting college stuff done and Legends of Equestria testing stuff.
So my main question is, have you gotten any other offers for art? I read a bit down this thread, and didn't find anything. My offer is still open, though it might take a bit longer. Up to a month to finish, now that I am starting college again.
I did get Inkscape as a proper vectoring program (finally), so it will be a higher quality than my current profile picture. I have improved since then.
But I am still a relative novice, so I would definitely go for someone else if anyone has offered.
Of course, this would be after the design is finalized.
4391522 No worries at all. I'm busy with a variety of things myself, school included. I know what you mean
Maskedferret, Snuffy, and I were talking about coverart on google docs a little while ago, Ferret had some contacts, but Snuffy said that they were busy and that I could check in later. As always happen when it comes to horse-words, it petered out and I focused on writing instead
I do plan on making another blogpost bringing up the subject, this time having a few more ideas that frankly seems better suited for coverart. Not that I don't like the the concept I suggested when I first wrote this post, but its true that it might not be best for the intended purpose.
All in all, there's no rush in this front. It looks like the story could go on for quite a while, and I'm gonna slow down my writing for a few months. Which on the other hand might be a good opportunity to get my hands on some coverart.
I'm not much of an artist myself, but through sheer determination, I have managed to make some pretty decent drawings in the past. They have the sketch-look, but I like that stuff. I'm thinking of checking out SorcerusHorserus's quick tutorials, and see if I can work on a concept image sometime.
I'm gonna take my time on this whole affair and try and make it proper from the first go. I hope you're not finding this frustrating
Would you like me to get on with it on this whole affair? Because I can.
4392023 Nah, I'm not impatient at all. You go at whatever pace you want.
I just wanted to let you know that I was sorry for not keeping up with it for a while, and that my offer is still open if you need it.
And if you can get good results, I really encourage the idea of trying to make the cover art yourself. At least in my experience, it makes the story more... personal to you.
For example, my cover art, while not the best work, is good enough, and I enjoy it immensely, despite it not being quite as good as some other art I see. There is a certain satisfaction you get from doing it yourself. (at least for me)
Whatever you choose, though, will be fine with me. I'm super-flexible, and I don't get frustrated easily.
Just don't give me a deadline during Finals week
Very courteous, thank you
Yeah, no deadlines.