Custom Cover Art Thread

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

These are fantastic. How did you come up with your starfield? I have a starfield in the backgropund of my "Star Wars" custom cover but your stars are showing up a lot better.

Also, I'm curious why your "DVD Supplemental Material" disc has a Blu-ray logo on the spine. I struggled with that too for awhile but finally decided that I would have to put a DVD logo on the spine.

Thanks. The crawl concept was the client's request. It was fun to recreate the crawl and the idea was pretty neat, I think.

Here's the starfield image I used:
http://universe-beauty.com/albums/sp...ar-field-9.JPG Google Images is your friend.

About that BD logo on the DVD-discs. It's just one of those things. You're right, it should have been a DVD logo. It just didn't occur to me to change it. The caveats of using templates, eh? Still, if the point was to keep the DVDs in something that matched the BD set, it's somehow justified.

Speaking of justified, I wasn't aware it had gone out of fashion:-) Sometimes it can be used to tighten up a loose design, sometimes it make things seem too boxy. On your Star Wars cover the boxiness of the backs either demands justification, or makes it too boxy as a whole. I can't make up my mind. Glad to see the use of the UK quads on the back. Did you ever consider reversing the back and front, quads on the front?

One thing, I think your yellow is a bit garish. (Too green?) I sampled several of the Star Wars openings before settling on the more orange hue. They're subtly different in all the films, with variants between different home video iterations to boot, so there's no one proper Star Wars yellow. I even added a subtle orange-to yellow gradient on my title crawls. The farther "away" they get, the darker the yellow. Just adds that subtle depth effect. (Though according to proper perspective theory, colours should be lighter the farther away an object is. Doesn't apply in the darkness of space, you see.)

Cheers.

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Nissen

Here's the starfield image I used:
http://universe-beauty.com/albums/sp...ar-field-9.JPG Google Images is your friend.

About that BD logo on the DVD-discs. It's just one of those things. You're right, it should have been a DVD logo. It just didn't occur to me to change it. The caveats of using templates, eh? Still, if the point was to keep the DVDs in something that matched the BD set, it's somehow justified.

Speaking of justified, I wasn't aware it had gone out of fashion:-) Sometimes it can be used to tighten up a loose design, sometimes it make things seem too boxy. On your Star Wars cover the boxiness of the backs either demands justification, or makes it too boxy as a whole. I can't make up my mind. Glad to see the use of the UK quads on the back. Did you ever consider reversing the back and front, quads on the front?

One thing, I think your yellow is a bit garish. (Too green?) I sampled several of the Star Wars openings before settling on the more orange hue. They're subtly different in all the films, with variants between different home video iterations to boot, so there's no one proper Star Wars yellow. I even added a subtle orange-to yellow gradient on my title crawls. The farther "away" they get, the darker the yellow. Just adds that subtle depth effect. (Though according to proper perspective theory, colours should be lighter the farther away an object is. Doesn't apply in the darkness of space, you see.)

Cheers.

Thanks, the link doesn't work but I'll do a Google image search.

I initially planned on using the UK Quad posters on the front, but the dimensions of the posters and the requirement of the SW logo dictated that I would need vertical posters on the cover. The "Star Wars" UK Quad is the poster that has the most nostalgic value for me, having seen the movie in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, U.K. back in Oct. 1977.

I initially had a Blu-ray logo on my spine until someone called me on it on EuphoricFX. It might look a little out of place in a Blu-ray case but so be it. I am almost considering not using a DVD/Blu-ray logo at all. Thoughts?

Thanks for the tip on the logo color. I forget how I came up with that yellow. Still, the eyedropper tool is a wonderful tool.

So, should I justify the back into solid blocks for the synoposis? The more I look at other custom covers the more it seems to be the standard. I just remember my newspaper editor boss when I was a young buck reporter saying that nobody would read a block of text and that it was better to break it up into more manageable pieces.

[OrlandoEastwood]

Here's my 6 in 1 printed off and put in a 6 disc case. Since the printer wasn't big enough, I resized it from 22mm to 15mm but kept the spine the same size, but squeezed the front and back to fit the image.

[Milambian]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

Thanks, the link doesn't work but I'll do a Google image search.

The link didn't work for me at first either, however I did find that if you copy the URL from the address bar and paste it in again and go, it will come up fine.

[RodChester]

Originally Posted by Nissen

Just so you guys wouldn't think I've gone cold turkey on the customs (or Star Wars):

... and here's one for a client who wanted a BD case to house the supplemental discs from the DVD releases:



I'm sorry I can't share these, but maybe the people who commissioned them will make them available down the road.

Man I would love to have a copy of that bonus disc cover. I really hope whoever commissioned it will feel the need to share the love and post it at some point.

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Milambian

The link didn't work for me at first either, however I did find that if you copy the URL from the address bar and paste it in again and go, it will come up fine.

Thanks. It worked for me using that method. I found a 3,000 x 3,000 pixel starfield on DeviantArt but I think that Nissen's looks better.

Still have to fix the logo color but here is where it stands with the starfield fixed:

[DrrnHarr]

Question:

The time duration of the documentaries too much?

[G:Box]

Originally Posted by OrlandoEastwood

Here's my 6 in 1 printed off and put in a 6 disc case. Since the printer wasn't big enough, I resized it from 22mm to 15mm but kept the spine the same size, but squeezed the front and back to fit the image.

[Show spoiler]

Why all those random titles stuck together

[DrrnHarr]

Added details to spine:

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

Looks great, Drrn. Love the new starfield. I also think the justified text looks much better.

Yes, this starfield shows up much better than the previous one.

I changed the font of the Bonus materials type and liked it enough that the narrow type allowed enough room for inclusion on the spine.

I do wonder if the documentaries need runtimes. The mammoth 2 hr. 30 minute "Empire of Dreams" kinda shows up the other two docs. Perhaps put "Empire of Dreams" into a larger font?

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

Question:

The time duration of the documentaries too much?

[Show spoiler]

Since you asked...... Yes, I think so.

I always treat the front as an unspoiled, glamour-shot. As little superflous info as possible. I like to have a Blu-Ray logo on the front, though, which some people find unnecesarry. I'm also a sucker for credit blocks on the front, gives me that proper movie-poster feel. So far I've only done it on one or two covers. Running times are a bit much, methinks.

On the spine, maybe you should stick to just one line of text there. It looks a little cramped. Better to leave something out.

Wast starfield-improvement. The link in my original post works just fine in Firefox, YMMV.

Even though the back text is justified, there's always room for a paragraph break here and there to break it up. Your newspaper editor was right.

...and I admit that BD logo on the DVD compilation was a gaffe. The client hasn't complained yet, but I'd be happy to change it.

[DrrnHarr]

Two versions:





I'm also in the early WIP stages of a nostalgic childhood favorite:

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

Haha, I love Force 10! Well, I did when I was a kid anyway. Great poster art too.

Have you considered using Compacta or Impact for the spine TT font? They would seem to be more in line with the cover. You might do a treatment on them (treatment on the title treatment!) to make them look "stony" as well. Would be a nice exercise.

I haven't given the spine much thought yet, I will try working with those fonts though!

I have fond memories of going to see the movie when it was released in the theaters. I would have been about seven when it came out and I remember standing in line with my friends at the theater studying the poster.

As such that particular poster has always had a strong nostalgic draw for me and successive DVD and Blu-rays have never utilized it.

[teekay101]

This thread is pretty epic... I love what you guys have been up to. Wish I had the time and motivation to print out my own covers. Especially because I'm in Canada and a lot of the covers come with French text, which makes them look pretty crappy. I have nothing against French... but it really does mess up the look of an English movie's cover...

[JJE-187]

Those look amazing Imrahil any chance you might do the prequel trilogy to match?

[DrrnHarr]

I love the way you have the "Special Features" text wrapped around the listings -- very clever

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

What is the reasoning behind them not generally using poster art? Is it a royalties thing?

I think it has to be. Why pay royalties to an artist when you can instead get an hourly wage studio employee to throw something together in Photoshop? I'm sure that's their mentality.

Shame is, there is so much great theatrical poster art out there.

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

Everyone's gotta have their own, and here's mine. Star Wars: The Original Trilogy blu rays.

With much adoration for the works of Mr. Ralph McQuarrie and Mr. Tom Whalen, whose art formed the basis of these covers.

[Show spoiler]

As always, these can be found at Euphoricfx.org.

Scrumptious! You're the spine-master!

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

This.

But maybe increase the kerning on the Universe font? May look okay in full-size, mind.

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

Thanks for the info, I'll do a quick edit sometime this weekend.

No problem at all, so are the corrected versions at EuphoricFX?

Thanks