Custom Cover Art Thread

[John_Carpenter]

Version 1


Version 2

[Justanothercrow421]

Dracula (1931)


Frankenstein (1931)


The Mummy (1932)


The Invisible Man (1933)


The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)


The Wolf Man (1941)


Phantom of the Opera (1943)


Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

[Sowhatwhocaresyo]

Now that the MaXXXine release had dropped, decided to make a cover for the whole "X Trilogy", grindhouse style baby!
a.jpg

[John_Carpenter]

[Nissen]

Here is a personal project for another of my favourites: Burt Lancaster's The Flame and the Arrow.

If ever there was a perfect film, this is it. The traditional and comfortably familiar good vs. evil conventions, the acrobatics of Lancaster and Nick Cravat, the impossible beauty of Virgina Mayo, the classic score by Max Steiner, the Technicolor, they all make this my go-to entertainment when I need a pick-me-up. Loved it at 12, still love it at 52.

If only there was a perfect Blu-ray out there to complement it. There are both Spanish and Italian "grey" Blus available (I have them both), sourced from an HD download. They look good, but the film hasn't received the top-to-bottom restoration it deserves. This cover is meant to tide me over until the film gods perform a physical release miracle.

Naturally, anyone can PM me for a download link.

[Heartbreaksoup]

This month's Fake Criterions: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (with art from Ronald Searle), Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout, Wild Things, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and Up (featuring some amazing fan art by CultPoster). I hope you like 'em!

[Heartbreaksoup]

This is terrific, and I'm also not buying any of these movies until they come out in a package like this!

Originally Posted by Sowhatwhocaresyo

Now that the MaXXXine release had dropped, decided to make a cover for the whole "X Trilogy", grindhouse style baby!
Attachment 308317

[Nissen]

Here are Blu-ray versions of the Universal Monsters set I made for 4K a few weeks ago. PM me for download links.

[nousefouraname]

Random question. I'm looking for a blu-ray 4k slip box. Ideally, I'm looking for a rigid slip box to match my Halloween and Friday the 13th Shout factory box sets, but I"m looking for one that will fit the 3 new Halloween movies. Ideally, I'd want to put all 3 in there in their slipcovers.

I'd be open to commissioning someone for this as I'm coming up empty on Etsy, etc. If there is anyone that does these, let me know. I'd be open to just a black box, or one that has simple artwork on it specific to that Halloween trilogy only. It doesn't have to be anything crazy.

Anyone out there in this world that has any ideas? Feel free to PM if you have found what I'm looking for or if you're a maker.

[jlyon1515]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

Using the font preview feature I took screenshots of all the text I needed, then removing the backgrounds. In Photoshop I used the "Magic Wand" tool to remove the backgrounds, the "Tolerance" set to "30" with the "Contiguous" option enabled. This left a jagged appearance around the outside of the text, an outer pixel row or so of the background color. This was intentional however. The key here is selecting the right background color, one that will blend into the background the text is being placed on once sizing the images down. End result shown below.

This might be a better method for you: First, do the font preview as white text on black background. Next, when you copy that into Photoshop, paste into a new document, then give that layer a mask. Hold Alt and click on the mask, now paste that black and white image into the mask. Finally, click out of the mask editor by clicking the main box for the layer (not mask), and fill your layer solid white (or any color you want). What you now have is the text, and the mask is making the outline of the text, so there is not jagged text at all. The bonus is that you can apply drop shadow or any other layer effects now, and it'll work perfectly, as if you've type the text from a font.

Below is a graphic to help explain. I've put in something behind the text and added a drop shadow effects layer to help show off the technique.



Does this make sense? People often don't know they can paste black and white images into the layer mask, but it works wonders!

[Nissen]

Here is a set of covers for a client who wanted to split up the Dentist set from Vestron/Lionsgate.

He generously agreed to share these, so feel free to PM me for download links.

[AmishParadise]

I'm taking this thread off topic for a brief moment. My apologies in advance.
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I performed a complete fresh today on the menu graphics for my re-authoring of the Shout Factory "The Sword and the Sorcerer" Blu-ray release. (See my Doom9 forum post, here for updated pics and to learn more about my re-authoring of the Blu-ray.) For the POPUP MENU I went the extra mile recreating the image which appears to the left of the menu items, a portion of one of the movie posters.

Originally I was using the 8-bit indexed PNG from the retail Blu-ray which involved removing the surrounding background. The image also included some significant banding. (HDMV based Blu-ray's are limited a single 256 color palette per menu page. Gradients don't fare so well as a result.) That being said, I found a clean version of the poster they sourced the image from so I rolled my own. Turned out great I think. See below for a pic of the progression.


(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

On the far left next to the poster is the object from the retail Blu-ray which is to scale. To the right of the poster is the portion I extracted for use with my version of the Blu-ray. To the far right is the end result once sized down and tweaked in various ways, the most significant tweak being to the castle pictured on the left side which I made look more complete as Shout Factory had done with their version of the image. And here's what the object (image) looks like from the POPUP MENU.


(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

Not bad for a day's work. Those of you who are graphically inclined should really consider dipping your toes into the Blu-ray menu creation waters. I'm developing a "Universal Blu-ray Authoring Template" which I expect will be ready for public consumption by year's end. The template will eliminate the programming aspect of creating a Blu-ray by and large allowing one's primary focus to be on the menu graphics. For a quick overview of the current template see my Doom9 forum post, here.
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Now back to our regularly scheduled program....

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by jlyon1515

This might be a better method for you: First, do the font preview as white text on black background. Next, when you copy that into Photoshop, paste into a new document, then give that layer a mask. Hold Alt and click on the mask, now paste that black and white image into the mask. Finally, click out of the mask editor by clicking the main box for the layer (not mask), and fill your layer solid white (or any color you want). What you now have is the text, and the mask is making the outline of the text, so there is not jagged text at all. The bonus is that you can apply drop shadow or any other layer effects now, and it'll work perfectly, as if you've type the text from a font.

Below is a graphic to help explain. I've put in something behind the text and added a drop shadow effects layer to help show off the technique.

[Show spoiler]

Does this make sense? People often don't know they can paste black and white images into the layer mask, but it works wonders!

Excellent suggestion. And yes, it makes total sense. Can't wait to give this a try.

[stardragon9]

Hey everyone! I want to apologize for disappearing from the cover scene for a while, life has been rather busy. Anyways, thankfully I have found a new place to hold my covers and previews for me and I will be slowly going through this thread and replacing the links.

Another thing of note, I used to host my covers over on EuphoricFX but they closed their site a few months ago. I have tried at a couple other cover places and they deemed that all of my covers were below their standards. So from now on, if you would like a copy of a cover I have made, just pm me for the link. For those who are registered at uncovered.name I will still post there. But I will mainly be sharing via PM.

Since Euphoric has shut down, I would also like to offer to share some of my covers that were exclusive to that site. I made a set of custom Lionsgate covers based on the old Thorn EMI vhs cases.

Here is an example of the original Thorn EMI VHS cases:


Here is an example for the first John Wick movie:


Another set of covers I made were for the MCU, based on the old Key Video vhs cases:


For comparison, here is what the original Key Video vhs case looked like:


If either one of these interests people, I will show the rest of the sets and offer them for download. Many thanks for being supportive over these years and helping encourage my cover creating. I hope life slows down a little so I can return to making more covers.

[Harvey Plissken]

Has anybody made Lord of the Rings trilogy 4K/Blu-Ray covers that match the style of the old thick DVD sets (green for FotR, red for Two Towers, & blue for RotK)? If possible, I'd like to see someone make three sets a piece (one for the 4K discs, one for the regular Blu-ray discs, and the other one for the bonus features discs). Thank you in advance.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by Harvey Plissken

Has anybody made Lord of the Rings trilogy 4K/Blu-Ray covers that match the style of the old thick DVD sets (green for FotR, red for Two Towers, & blue for RotK)? If possible, I'd like to see someone make three sets a piece (one for the 4K discs, one for the regular Blu-ray discs, and the other one for the bonus features discs). Thank you in advance.

Justanothercrow worked up some LOTR cover art recently. See here.

[Heartbreaksoup]

Originally Posted by stardragon9

(snip)

Another set of covers I made were for the MCU, based on the old Key Video vhs cases:


For comparison, here is what the original Key Video vhs case looked like:


If either one of these interests people, I will show the rest of the sets and offer them for download. Many thanks for being supportive over these years and helping encourage my cover creating. I hope life slows down a little so I can return to making more covers.

That's really interesting. I tend not to enjoy the packaging of most films, but the overcluttered mess that Disney's marketing monkeys create for Marvel and Star Wars is usually next-level ugly. This simpler little throwback of yours is certainly an improvement on the official releases. I like how it playfully evokes the Key VHS style without really replicating it. You can see where it's influenced how you've chosen to solve the problems, but it's very much its own thing. Nice work!

[Justanothercrow421]

Originally Posted by Harvey Plissken

Has anybody made Lord of the Rings trilogy 4K/Blu-Ray covers that match the style of the old thick DVD sets (green for FotR, red for Two Towers, & blue for RotK)? If possible, I'd like to see someone make three sets a piece (one for the 4K discs, one for the regular Blu-ray discs, and the other one for the bonus features discs). Thank you in advance.

I think I know the style you're after. Something like this?

These are very rough WIPs I threw together...

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by stardragon9

Another set of covers I made were for the MCU, based on the old Key Video vhs cases:

Have the credits be on the front and the Marvel/special features on the back. Looks a bit too "cheap" for lack of a better word with the big honking logo on the front bottom.

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Justanothercrow421

I think I know the style you're after. Something like this?

These are very rough WIPs I threw together...

[Show spoiler]

Maybe utilize the artwork from those DVD sets as well for the back? Instead of just movie screencaps.