Graphic novel pages

Front cover designs for my novel

 Version 1: Top left: Akila, middle: Haku, right: Skye.
For this image I wanted to show that the novel isn't all doom and gloom, I wanted to show that the novel will be a fun read as well as dark and mysterious by showing Akila in the top left of the image. I used pinks and blue's for the sky to show happiness within the story and to contrast it with Akila as he is just in silhouette.

Feedback: For this attempt my CSS did not feel as though this was a strong design, he felt as though the strongest part of it was Akila in the top left and that I should just focus the cover on this section. My CSS also told me that he did not like the text and that I should try doing the text by hand to make it look more interesting.

 Version 2: Akila.

For this version I followed my CSS's advice and cropped the image down so that it was just Akila on the front cover, I altered the contrast and felt like the image worked better being black and white. I worked with the red in Akila's eye and used it again in the scratch on the text, I felt like this made the image stand out more. The purpose of the scratch in the text is to show that the story is not just a happy tale about talking wolves, but a story that includes violence too. I wanted the text to fit with the word 'distorted' and so I experimented with making the text look more slanted and warped. I wanted to incorporate Akila's key into the front cover some how to show that it plays a big part of the story, although I did not want to put it around Akila's neck, and so I worked with the writing, carving a key into the 'D' and changing the 'I' to a keyhole.

Feedback: My CSS felt that this cover was a lot stronger than the first attempt, although it still needed work. He liked the way I had produced the text but felt as though it wasn't 'designed' enough and didn't look professional. He thought the key hole for the 'I' was over working the text and suggested I look at existing texts and create my own version of it.

Version 3: Akila.

I looked at existing texts of the word 'distorted' and found some interesting results although I did not want to copy someone else's work and so I used an existing text from the program Clip studio paint and used some of the filters within the program to mis-shape the text. I used filters such as 'wave' and 'twist', which I feel work quite well. I originally had my name at the bottom of the page in a straight line, although it looked out of place to me, and so I warped it with the title.

For this design I still wanted to incorporate Akila's key into the front cover, although I did not like my second front cover design and so I started from scratch. I still wanted to use the silhouette idea to hide Akila's identity, although I did not want to hide it completely and so I changed the colour of his outline to a light grey, leaving the rest of him in silhouette aside from his eye. I wanted his red eye to stand out in a similar way to the previous design, with the eye coordinating with the text.