Custom Cover Art Thread

[cragman69]

Originally Posted by cragman69

[Show spoiler]

Hi all recently purchased The Last Samurai second hand, unfortunately case and cover were damaged, and i had a dvd copy already so i decided i would make a double play sleeve, head over to my deviant art space to download full size image if interestedhttp://cragman69.deviantart.com/#

the artwork on back is from another custom but im not sure who found the image but no details, i have made changes to this though to clean the image up and make it more clear.

Originally Posted by Nissen

Not bad, not bad at all! I like your front and the gold spine. That's one of the better posters I've seen for this movie. Did you add that black splotch (Radial Gradient?) on the bottom half to it to cover up some text?

I read why you included that Double Play banner, and I get it, but it's butt-ugly

Just a quick thing on the back, the text isn't centered properly, and there's the question of legibility. It probably looks fine full-size, no? Maybe line up the specs-box with the edges of the text?

Hi thanks for the comments in answer to your question yes i did add the black splotch to cover up some words on the poster i used, you are probably right about the butt ugly double play but for the purpose of why im using this i feel its needed for my own collection, i may upload a version without at somepoint, the back is not that editable as its from a scanned version of a region 1 cover, i have only changed colours and logos at bottom so text is not as easy to move about but i understand what you meen and if i have the time i may sit and do afresh backcover from scratch



well here is my next upload, similar too previous post i have purchased ghost rider second hand and already have the film on dvd and so have come up with double play cover hardest part of this cover was the flame frames on the back cover as trying to colour match ghost rider titles was painfull, let me know what you all think, love the critism

[cragman69]

Hi all just thought i would mention also i found this website http://www.vernonlibrarysupplies.com...isc-cases.html i was after a 6 disk bluray box for a custom i want to do, the only downside is this is in the US, anybody no of a place that sells these in the uk?

[OrlandoEastwood]

Have you tried Ebay UK?

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

I posted my "For Your Eyes Only" cover to EuphoricFX if anyone is interested.

Could you post it here as well? I'd love to see how it turned out.
Or are you just slummin' with us forum-only fogies?

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by cragman69

Hi all just thought i would mention also i found this website http://www.vernonlibrarysupplies.com...isc-cases.html i was after a 6 disk bluray box for a custom i want to do, the only downside is this is in the US, anybody no of a place that sells these in the uk?

No, but I would seriously hunt out Viva Elite cases rather than Vortex cases - Viva Elite is just a much better (and thinner) case.

Originally Posted by Nissen

Could you post it here as well? I'd love to see how it turned out.
Or are you just slummin' with us forum-only fogies?

I'll e-mail it to you Nissen...I'm not sure how to upload the full jpeg to this site.

I also completed "A View to a Kill" last night and part-way through getting "The Living Daylights" done.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Trekkie313

What the hell?

I spent many hours finding perfect pictures and fixing Cowboy's render problems, and now someone beat me to it?

Anyways, here is my WIP plus the original.





Here is my World Is Not Enough concept.

Who gave you permission to alter or re-use my work?

[lkmg]

Originally Posted by cragman69

Hi thanks for the comments in answer to your question yes i did add the black splotch to cover up some words on the poster i used, you are probably right about the butt ugly double play but for the purpose of why im using this i feel its needed for my own collection, i may upload a version without at somepoint, the back is not that editable as its from a scanned version of a region 1 cover, i have only changed colours and logos at bottom so text is not as easy to move about but i understand what you meen and if i have the time i may sit and do afresh backcover from scratch

[Show spoiler]

well here is my next upload, similar too previous post i have purchased ghost rider second hand and already have the film on dvd and so have come up with double play cover hardest part of this cover was the flame frames on the back cover as trying to colour match ghost rider titles was painfull, let me know what you all think, love the critism

Nice cover. But you forgot to place the 2 important logos at the front cover. After all, it is a UK cover art.

[Rusty100]

Yeah, I've seen some edited versions of my covers on foreign sites. You're not doing it for money (I hope) so who cares?

[cjclifford]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

Who gave you permission to alter or re-use my work?

Imitation is the sincerest from of flattery.

[TriuneImpurityRites]

hahahah

[Nissen]

This is my 2nd attempt at Rocketeer. A third one, based on the usual cover art (the one with the blue background) is coming up soon.

For this one I went the commercial route, using the teaser poster everyone wants. I don't think that particular image has ever worked on the posters I've seen, and when I recently saw the soundtrack cover it dawned on me why.
The CD, with it's square front, showed more of the "dead space" surrounding the figure. It occured to me that all the posters and covers I've seen over the years have been cropped too tightly. The figure is too angular and complex a graphic to be comfortably readable when it fills a canvas. It needs more space around it to not look too busy.

The challenge was to find a high-rez image of the poster, with all the surrounding background intact. Of course, no such image exists, so once again I had to cobble together a poster from several images. Luckily, The Rocketeer has seen a moderate resurrection the last six months, and more High-Rez scans of the posters have surfaced. I wound up extending much of the background with heavy use of the clone tool, the smudge tool (!) and various gradients using the CD inlay as a guide to how it should look. I always like to extend the front image into the spine and back, so I had to make quite a bit of image realestate up from scratch. I think the result turned out fine.

Once again, I elected not to use any art from the comics or of any prop replicas or fanmade costumes. I'm quite stubborn about that. The one exception is the insignia on the spine, by Deviant Artist J.K. Antwon. It will be on the spine of all my Rocketeer covers, I think.

To give it that old, authentic art-deco look I employed some quite heavy grain (noise) on the background, and superimposed old, weathered paper on the whole cover. Just to dirty it up a bit, like I always like to do. (I made a hold-out matte for the main figure and the rear images to occlude the paper there, so that they would stand out more.)

For the logo I reverted to the original, theatrical title treatment. It is a little spindly and hard to make readable on a busy background, so I was forced to revert to drop shadows to really make it stand out. I gave the letters a metallic texture, as it seemed quite appropriate. To everyone's relief, I included the "The" this time

The back warranted another art-deco theme. I found some lineart of an art-deco pattern via Google, and recreated parts of it using the pen tool and stroking with a 5 pixel brown line. I overlaid a pressed aluminium texture which isn't really historically appropriate, but it brought the whole element to life. Lastly I applied a 2-pixel black glow to frame it against the background.

The art-deco pattern gave me some natural shapes for the images and text that tied the whole thing together. The circles with faces was an afterthought, when I decided I wanted to feature more of the players from the movie. All those faces are screengrabs from a 720p HDTV capture I have laying around. They're not properly posed photographs, but they'll do. (I would like to have access to screengrabs for every project I do, that way I'm not reliant upon just what a still-photographer happened to capture way back when.) You'll excuse the use of a major spoiler image (also a direct frame grab), but I thought it was the perfect image to make the film seem action-filled and exciting.

Re: the strict layout of the back, I'm generally a disciple of the golden rule of composition, but with an art-deco layout the complete centering of everything is quite legitimate. Symmetry can't really be avoided when evoking this style.

If ever a cover called out for a black Blu-Ray case this is it. My heart just sank when I created a preview with that blue monstrosity. One could see it as a design challenge, to make the coverart work with the blue border, but I can guarantee you no designer was involved when "they" decided to go blue for all cases. May "they" rot in hell.

Sorry.

Anyway, much to my delight, Disney released the official specs only yesterday, so I could include accurate info on the release. The rumours indicate it will be a barebones release, so I made no accomodation for special features in my layout. If that changes, I'll have to rethink the back a bit. (For once I find myself wishing for a barebones release )

That's it. Another cover under my belt. Hope everyone loves The Rocketeer as much as I do. True fans may PM me for a High Rez copy of this.

[GunRanger]

That's great, though I would remove the blu ray logo from the front.

[Tyger]

Originally Posted by Nissen

I don't think that particular image has ever worked on the posters I've seen, and when I recently saw the soundtrack cover it dawned on me why.
The CD, with it's square front, showed more of the "dead space" surrounding the figure. It occured to me that all the posters and covers I've seen over the years have been cropped too tightly. The figure is too angular and complex a graphic to be comfortably readable when it fills a canvas. It needs more space around it to not look too busy.

Nissen, I LOVE that Rocketeer cover completely as is. But curious, if you think the poster image works best with more dead space and you had to recreate most of it anyway, did you think about tilting it at all to add more dead space?

[cpowell21]

Orphan blu ray cover in need! Custom or original would be accepted, I just need something.. Can anyone help?

[Nissen]

Originally Posted by Tyger

Nissen, I LOVE that Rocketeer cover completely as is. But curious, if you think the poster image works best with more dead space and you had to recreate most of it anyway, did you think about tilting it at all to add more dead space?

Tilting it? In what way?

It is the diagonal direction of the figure that gives it that dynamic movement. Tilt it in any direction and it starts to become stagnant. Whoever made this image knew what they were doing. Does anyone know the artist? I don't think it was Dave Stevens himself.

[Tyger]

Just a bit to the right, just a little more East than North. Like I said, just curious if you thought about it to give it some more dead space. I personally love it the way it is.

[GunRanger]

Can anyone make a Thor cover for me using these two pics?

[Show spoiler]
Front


Back

[DrrnHarr]

Originally Posted by Nissen

This is my 2nd attempt at Rocketeer. A third one, based on the usual cover art (the one with the blue background) is coming up soon

Excellent work Nissen, I love the 1930s feel you have going on the cover.

Below are two WIPs for "A View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" based on the 007 template I put together (with much input from Imrahil, Nissen and others). I have always liked the poster art for these two movies. Once again they are WIPs not the finished product (e.g. TLD still has some FYEO info on it and Roger Moore on the spine etc).

[lkmg]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

Excellent work Nissen, I love the 1930s feel you have going on the cover.

Below are two WIPs for "A View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" based on the 007 template I put together (with much input from Imrahil, Nissen and others). I have always liked the poster art for these two movies. Once again they are WIPs not the finished product (e.g. TLD still has some FYEO info on it and Roger Moore on the spine etc).

[Show spoiler]

A View to a Kill's front cover looks a bit plain, probably too much white patches. The Living Daylights looks great. As usual, I like your back cover.

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by DrrnHarr

Excellent work Nissen, I love the 1930s feel you have going on the cover.

Below are two WIPs for "A View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" based on the 007 template I put together (with much input from Imrahil, Nissen and others). I have always liked the poster art for these two movies. Once again they are WIPs not the finished product (e.g. TLD still has some FYEO info on it and Roger Moore on the spine etc).

[Show spoiler]

Those look pretty good to me. The only thing I would change is the pattern on the back kind of blends in with the titles and the specs. I would apply a black gradient at the bottom to separate them a bit.