Custom Cover Art Thread

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by Imrahil2001

I have updated; tried to make it a bit more realistic as per Rusty's suggestion, and added some pictures to the back. I'm mostly happy with it:

[Show spoiler]

Mostly happy, Huh? Imrahil, this is spectacular! Both the idea and the execution are top-notch, professional work. I'm still on the fence about the re-rendering of Ecto-1. The realistic look is a technical feat, but somehow the simpler shadings made the cover more exciting graphically. The halfway realistic look strikes me as neither here nor there. Not quite a photograph, but not quite stylistic either. They both work, mind you. I guess I just miss the clean lines of the first attempt. Maybe a happy medium (the blurring of the rear door silhouette seems a little overdone.)? The white highlights on the windows could work well on the simpler rendering as well.

What I do like is how you integrated the no-ghost logo into the car door on the new version. On the old version it seemed a little superflous as it was already so prominent in the Ghosbusters text. Now that it looks like part of the car, it makes more sense, not just pasted on the front. I also like the darker red under the Criterion Block on the new version. You changed that to match the darker red on the no-ghost? The "An Ivan Reitman Film" line ruins the graphical simplicity of the front to me, YMMV.

When you added the screenshots, the text that previously fit so nicely into the different colour blocks of the door, now seems a little arbitrarily placed. It was just such a good desing to begin with. Especially the top "The Criterion Collection, a continuing series" looked much better as originally placed.

The glow around the credit block text may not be entirely necessary. I'm sure it will be legible just fine against the grey. If you can do without it I'd say drop it.

Could you tell us a little about how you made the car? Illustrator, Photoshop?
The dirt on the car and the rust from the handles is very nicely integrated. Was this from a photo or handdrawn?

Where did you get the vector for no-ghosts? Did you make it yourself?

Took you a long time, did it? Making this cover?

You mention doing these for some guy. Are you taking commissions? I only ask because I've been wondering about doing it myself and am unsure how the custom cover community views this.

[dv8pdx]

Originally Posted by GunRanger

Any specific brand and size?

I use HP brochure and flyer paper, it has just seemed to work the best, but honestly haven't tried others. I can get a cover on a standard 8.5x11 size and will fit a regular blu-ray cover with borderless printing, I have to special order 8.5x14 brochure paper for the larger (upto 25mm) spines since most office stores dont carry it in store.

[Rusty100]

Originally Posted by dv8pdx

I use HP brochure and flyer paper, it has just seemed to work the best, but honestly haven't tried others. I can get a cover on a standard 8.5x11 size and will fit a regular blu-ray cover with borderless printing, I have to special order 8.5x14 brochure paper for the larger (upto 25mm) spines since most office stores dont carry it in store.

I'll keep an eye out for something like that, because every paper I've tried has been unsuitable for covers.

[dylanosaur]

Has onyone made a T2 cover yet? Now that the Skynet Edition is only 8.99, I'll probably pick it up but that cover is just lame. I was thinking something along the lines of this poster by Ken Taylor.




Could someone make it happen?

[Scorch]

Looking at starting to make my own custom covers (and I have a LONG way to go).. but let's start with basics - if I wanted to take one image and make it the cover, how would I go about resizing it on a Mac? I guess most people use photoshop? I want to try making my own PS3 covers as well, but I can't find a program that lets me resize to 3225x1752 px without artifacting.

[Eismagier]

Originally Posted by Scorch

I can't find a program that lets me resize to 3225x1752 px without artifacting.

You need to start with artwork that is of a sufficient resolution to begin with. "Enhancing" small images like they do on TV remains fiction.

[DrrnHarr]

I decided to try my hand at putting together some custom covers. I used CS4 Illustrator and CS4 Photoshop.

I have the entire Adobe CS4 Creative Suite and am most familiar with InDesign, so the exercise also gave me a reason to learn more about Illustrator (which I had briefly used to supplement InDesign) and an introduction to Photoshop (which I had never even opened before).

As my first effort I chose a nostalgic favorite of mine.

When I was a young lad growing up in my native U.K. I went to see "Flash Gordon" at our village town hall. Once a month the town hall was converted into a movie theater with a man touring all the village town halls in the area (this was before home video) showing movies. I remember the town halls heating was broken that night and it was the depth of winter but I didn't care because I was enjoying the movie so much.

After seeing the movie I picked up the novelization which used the poster image I have on the front cover as its cover page. That's why I have always wished that a studio has seen fit to release a version of "Flash Gordon" with this cover art - but to my knowledge none ever has).

Yes the resolution is not the best, so if anyone has any high res version of this image I would be interested in hearing from you.

I also changed the special features listing to incorporate the Region 2 DVD I plan on using in a 2-pack (I have a region free DVD player). The Silver Edition DVD a few years back included a fantastic Brian Blessed audio commentary and an audio commentary by Director Mike Hodges.

I also reconstituted the original A certificate that was given to the movie on its theatrical release but reverted to PG because I didn't like the look of it. Also, since I reviewed the DVD release when I worked for The Washington Post Company I used one of my quotes for the back cover.

I know I vowed never to post my covers here but I decided, what the heck.

*Braces for Rusty's attack*



Image will be loaded to EuphoricFX (with Region 2 DVD reference removed). My thanks to Imrahil2001 for his comments and suggestions.

[Scorch]

Originally Posted by Eismagier

You need to start with artwork that is of a sufficient resolution to begin with. "Enhancing" small images like they do on TV remains fiction.

I know that, haha! I just can't upsize them to the resolution I like. They're pretty big to begin with, but not 3225x1752.

ENHANCE!!

Let's Enhance - YouTube

[lkmg]

Originally Posted by dylanosaur

Has onyone made a T2 cover yet? Now that the Skynet Edition is only 8.99, I'll probably pick it up but that cover is just lame. I was thinking something along the lines of this poster by Ken Taylor.

[Show spoiler]

Could someone make it happen?

That poster looks great. But it is in landscape format, how to make it into a cover, unless it occupies both the front and back of the cover. Don't think that will work.

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by lkmg

That poster looks great. But it is in landscape format, how to make it into a cover, unless it occupies both the front and back of the cover. Don't think that will work.

I think this image would work great with the Terminator on the front cover and the gun stretching around over the spine and onto the back cover

[Agent Bond]

I appreciate DVDMike's use of the classic posters for the 007 films. Nostalgia at its finest.

[dylanosaur]

Thats what I was thinking too. The image would look cool stretched over the front and back. The only hard part would be getting the title on only the front and credits on the back.

[Eismagier]

Originally Posted by dylanosaur

Thats what I was thinking too. The image would look cool stretched over the front and back. The only hard part would be getting the title on only the front and credits on the back.

With a plain black background, removing the title text is easy. Also, the dimensions of the main part of the image (minus credits block and borders) fit a Blu-ray cover almost exactly.

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Agent Bond

I appreciate DVDMike's use of the classic posters for the 007 films. Nostalgia at its finest.

Absolutely.

The Bond VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray covers have all been universally awful. The Bond series has some of the absolute best posters out there and for some reason they seem ignored by the studios who would rather commission new work.

I will be embarking on the Bond covers now as my next project (following my freshman "Flash Gordon" effort above and the cover I am working on now) and the posters will be used whenever possible.

I am in the process of getting the resources together having tracked down EPS Vector images of the gunbarrel logo and the "Octo*****" logo, and also an Octo***** poster that is in 10 parts (each about 1,000 pixels ) that I can reconstitute into one image (I was even able to track down the original drawings that were compiled into the poster).

I was planning on starting with "For Your Eyes Only" but with my success on gathering "Octo*****" resources I will probably try that one first.

I have the book "The James Bond Posters" that I will use as a resource. Does anyone know if Kinko's has a problem scanning pages from a book? I can do it at work or home if they do but Kinko's probably has the better scanners.

[FlankerB]

Originally Posted by Illest Villain

This is a template for
Warner Brothers
http://www.mediafire.com/error.php?errno=320

Sony Columbia
http://www.mediafire.com/?djvdnz2y2yn

The WB template link is dead.

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by FlankerB

The WB template link is dead.

There are plenty of templates out there to use on the web.

EuphoricFX has plenty of templates on its site (including a Warner template). You can download up to 10 items a day there after posting 5 messages in their forums.

I have found the best site for resources is probably Customaniacs though you do have to purchase or earn credits to download files.

My issue is coming up with a template for the larger Blu-ray cases.

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by dylanosaur

Thats what I was thinking too. The image would look cool stretched over the front and back. The only hard part would be getting the title on only the front and credits on the back.

Dylanosaur, you've got a PM

[OrlandoEastwood]

I am buying a 6 disc case and I am making a custom cover for it. Now, I have 8 movies, so two movies are left over; Ip Man 1 & 2. I could either remove DTESS and Step Brothers or some thing else to make room for it.

[aimforsilence]

Could someone with more talent with Photoshop than me (everyone in this forum ) please re-do the Bonus feature disk from the star wars DVD set to fit in a Blu-Ray case? I'd really like to put it beside my Complete Star Wars blu-ray set on my shelf.

[Luke S.]

Just a quickly done version. Used the stamp tool and added Blu-ray logo
Star Wars Bonus.jpg