Wolf Legend Book Cover

_{Download Size: 1950 x 2850}

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The novel Wolf Legend can be found here: [link]

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My entry for the book cover contest over at #Wolf-Legend-Fans!

I had so many ideas for this project and originally wanted to fully
illustrate the cover, but I knew that if I did that I would never submit
my entry on time. Instead, I chose to photomanipulate one of my
easier ideas using the celebrity cast (as chosen by the author).

This layout was inspired by DVD covers and movie posters for
action/romance/supernatural flicks. A lot of book-turned-movies
end up being re-released in paperback with covers like these, so
that's what I was trying to achieve here. I did have several other
more classic ideas for the cover, but I knew this would be really
fun. Now that it's finished, I want to make some for my novels!

Overall, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I've never
attempted a Hollywood-style composite like this before, so it was
both a challenge and a delight. There are nine images in all and
one of them is from my own camera. A lot of work was spent trying
to get each photo to match the others in terms of contrast, lighting,
and overall color balance. The rest of my hours went towards the
various effects and tiny details, and there were quite a bit.

For Andrew, I had to remove a skull necklace from his chain since
it doesn't suit his character. I paid special attention to the marking
on his eye to ensure it was accurate and may have had too much
fun makings his eyes look lupine. Notice the dark circles, lol.

For Rebeka, I had to lighten her eyes and make them brown. She
is also wearing a small stud on her right nostril, which is a tiny
character detail I almost forgot. Her hair was a pain in the butt
to mask out since she was originally standing in bright light.

Other aspects of the characters are harder to notice since I added
a blue/cyan cast to the entire thing. Underneath that, the color
of their hair and eyes are a perfect match to their ref sheets.
In terms of relating back to the story itself, I made sure to include
Central Park as the background since they hail from New York.
And then the forest in the foreground symbolizes Andrew's pack's
home territory in the wilderness of Montana. The connection to
the wolves is pretty obvious and the gun being positioned towards
Rachel... well, I don't want to spoil anything for you non-readers.

The before and after of this entire project is pretty drastic, I'll
link to it at the bottom in case you want to take a look and see
what this originally started out as, without any aesthetic changes.

Sugar, I do hope you like it! I definitely didn't want to miss this
contest, it's right up my alley. I might end up submitting another
entry, that is if I can accomplish it in time, lol. Doing this cover
made me want to re-read the entire novel, so that's my plan for
tomorrow. Thanks for sharing Wolf Legend with us! It is such
a treat for a werewolf lover like me. Can't wait for more!

Oh, and let me know if you want the file for this for any reason.
You can play around with the filters and such that way, lol.

<sub>Created in Photoshop CS4 on August 24-25, 2010.

Sky Stock: [link] by ~Mourge-stawk
Foreground Forest: [link] by me
Inspiration: [link] I love Angel.
Characters & Storyline © =sugarpoultry
Typefaces: BuschGardenz, Bradley Hand ITC TT, and Capitals.
All other images from Google, copyright their respective owners.</sub>

Original Composite: [link]