Here’s another rough cover for “The Dreaming”. I don’t like it at all. >_< In fact, the more I look at it, the less I like it. It didn’t look as bad last night, but when I woke up this morning and had a good look at it, it’s like… YURK!! It took me a while to figure out why I hate it so much. It’s because this cover gives the wrong impression of what the book is really like. It makes it as if there are ghosts popping out of every corner and blood and guts, whereas this is meant to be a mystery-horror with more emphasis on plot and atmosphere rather than the “horror” bit. This cover – even though it needs fixing – is unrepentantly “pulp-horror”. It is… TOTALLY unsuitable for “The Dreaming”.

This was done in exactly the same way as the first one, I earlier version I played with the contrast and hue afterwards, giving the red a garish, bloody look. But in the light of the above, I decided to tone it back down, not that it makes much difference. But hey, this is just a draft so it doesn’t matter anyway (hopefully marketing will choose the first one).

More comparisons: I tried toying with the colours again in this second cover, but nope – it’s beyond redemption. To be honest, the trouble is with the concept, not so much the colours, though they just make it worse. I find that the more red I put in the picture, the more “pulpish horror” it looks, but if I take away the red, then the picture would have nothing to catch a person’s eye with. I tried brightening the other colours, but that makes it even more pulpish. I tried darkening the ghostly purple-blue to a plain darker blue, but again, it doesn’t make much difference.

The bottom line is: cover #1 portrays a better sense of mystery than cover #2. The “mystery” part is the key. You take one look at cover 2 and you think it’s a horror, which is EXACTLY the sort of impression I don’t want, because the emphasis is on the STORY and SETTING, not the gross-out bits. There AREN’T any gross-out scenes in “The Dreaming”, or even much blood (no blood, actually). Not to say cover #2 is a horrible cover, but it doesn’t give the right impression for the book. If the story was titled “Tales of the Crypt” or “Nighttime Horrors”, then YEAH, that WOULD be a more suitable cover. But it’s not, and if cover #2 makes it onto the shelves, it would frustrate people hoping to pick up a gory story, while driving away people looking for something more toned-down.

I’m now working on some rough covers for “The Dreaming”. This is my preferred cover, but the art director didn’t like it at all at first (the b&w version, that is). Luckily, with a bit of colour and the blurring effect, he seems to like it more now (I’ll still have to colour his choice in). Since this one didn’t take me long to do (about 4 hours), I’m going to be doing an extra cover or two so marketing can have a choice. The runners-up can be used for the next book.

This was done in Corel Painter 9 – I’m sure people would remember my adventures with this a few weeks ago. After having it for a month, I STILL couldn’t get the watercolour feature the way I want. I’m beginning to suspect the reason is not the software, but because I’ve never done watercolour properly in my life. That may explain why I can never get the effect I want no matter how I tweak it. I find myself growing fond of the airbrush function instead… So far, the grand total of all 3 cgs done in CP9 was airbrushed. Perhaps I should just stop spending my hours on watercolour attempts and try acrylics or other medium instead.

Remember, this is a very rough draft. And a Merry Xmas to y’all!