Hi Solar Force here

I'm thinking of making my own cover art for my stories, but I've never really done much in terms of making art at all, and not for a very long time. So I just want to ask, how do any of you go about creating fan art?

7294191
Just think of a scene of the story or something that represent's it or can give an idea of what it's about

7294191 In most instances I take some bits and pieces and try to put something together, typically using layers. This generally includes vectors, text, and other photos I draw from the internet. Example:

The above was made in some freeware called Photofiltre using a mixture of a painting, two vectors of RD and AJ, a vector of an MLP cloud, some text and liberal use of the gradient and layering functions.

I have also been known to draw my own stuff too, though since I'm not actually a terribly good artist, I don't often use these as coverarts. There are a few exceptions though, one of which I've posted below:

I've used three programs to draw my own stuff over the years. Originally I used freeware called smoothdraw, which I probably would only recommend if you're getting started and wanted to try something out. I quickly switched to paint tool SAI, which was much better and let me use vectors as well as some better tools, and I currently use Clip. The above was done in clip on minimal talent. I actually really like Clip, and sometimes it goes on sale, so if trying art out is something you like the idea of, I'd personally recommend at least trying it out (I think there's a trial version too).

I used a tablet from wacom called the intuos; the very small one. They're not really cheap in general, but the small intuos is a fairly affordable one and I've had it for years. There's probably a better one out there for a pro artist, but for me as a hobbyist playing around it does a good job.

When making art I try to think of making them very colourful and bright. I believe that more colourful and brighter art attracts the eye more, which makes using brighter colours a priority, which is why most of my coverarts are often quite saturated and feature a variety of vivid colours, or are primarily white to stand out.

I often use text since I'm shite at backgrounds, and text is easy and quick to add in. Example below:

You'll note that the quality on some of these is garbage. That's fine. Remember these are going to be _tiny on people's screens anyway so you can survive them being a bit shit. Just... if you're going to show them off like I am now, remember that folks will see the shittiness way more. Also remember that because they're going to be small, you need to make the text larger to compensate. Just because it looks readable on your screen at max size doesn't mean it'll work when it gets shrunk down to coverart size.

I find using my own art to be pretty fun, but it's hard to make something at least passable when drawing isn't really what I do as my main hobby. It takes a long time to get really good at drawing and art, which is why I often stick to compositions built around text and colours, not shapes.

If you do want to get into drawing your own in a non-composition way, I'd strongly recommend using a reference if you suck (like I do!). References help a lot. If you don't want to use a tablet, that's fine-ish. Tablets make things easier, but you can work competently enough with a mouse if you use vectors. I don't have any personal examples, but there are artists who can produce competent stuff with a mouse alone (although I... question why you might want to).

I would totally recommend something like corel draw if you want to make art, its pretty simple to use, I haven't done any mlp with it but if you look at my profile picture I did it in corel, it very detailed, but you got to put some work in and have a good reference.

7294191
I've taken to using an online program called Canva. You can choose a lot of assets to make your own custom cover.

7294191

Practice, experiences and the advantage of randomly being being born into a predominantly artistic family with sibling who happened to tell me stuff like how how to effectively composite a picture at some point,

In roughly that order.

More specifically, I somehow got decent at Photoshop and just mashed a bunch of MLP cells I found online into something I thought looked alright at the time.

7294191
I use GIMP for all of my artistic needs. When it comes to making covers, I usually try to find a good screenshot from Derpibooru, or take one myself from an episode. Screenshots are generally easiest because you don't need to seek permission from artists that way. Additional elements such as titles can easily be added in GIMP.

For a more flexible solution that doesn't require drawing skill, you can search Derpibooru for vectors and backgrounds and try to assemble your own cover as needed.

7294191
I'm with 7294194 in liking Clip Studio Paint.

One feature I find very useful in it is vector layers. With vector layers, you can adjust things you draw after you draw them without losing quality. I like to take the continuous curve tool, and use that extensively for lines in a vector layer, especially for tracing over screenshots. Just click along the curves of the lines in the screenshots, and afterwards adjust the anchors to get the curves looking exactly like you want them and vary the line widths.

And as far as tracing over screenshots goes, that's one way to get a particular character you want in your cover art. Find them in a screenshot and trace, and make any changes for the particular pose you want, etc. Mind you, I'm just talking screenshots of the show here, not other people's art. Of course, you can find plenty of vectors out there other people have already done of characters and made freely available for use, too.

https://www.deviantart.com/mlp-vectorclub

(I also like Affinity Designer for vectoring things, btw, though Inkscape is free, so a lot of people would send you that direction.)

And don't underestimate just taking a screenshot of the show wholesale, and either using it as is or making minor modifications.

--Sweetie Belle

7294191

1. Find something on Derpibooru/DeviantArt that fits the story ANd has a permissive license - as in, the artist didn't explicitly said 'You can't use that!' (it's much easier on Derpi due to the way site works).
2. Open with Gimp, make some changes if necessary AND add the story's title.
3. Add outline to the story's title text to make it look better.
4. Post!

Sometimes finding a cover art that fits the story can take hours though...