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[ADe] Book Cover - The War Of The Worlds


Mithferion

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Hi there!

Here in my country, a certain Library is making a contest about illustrating a book cover. So, I decided to enter by making The War Of The Worlds (one of my favourites of all times).

WOTW_5.png

Any feedback will be appreciated (I still have time until I send this to the Library's jury :D).

Best regards!

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The tricolour eye is iconic so that needs to replace the red semicircle at the top, and the aliens long sucker fingers need to be shown as they are iconic too, I'd also change the planet to a green or red.

Also move the H G Wells up a bit and add a tagline.

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Hi !

I love it, there are nice textures on the planets, but I found the background sort of "flat".

And, perhaps again because of the black background, I feel it need more interaction between the four elements: red planet, title, alien, Earth. For now they look like a strong centered column in the middle.  

I think you can play more with the font of the title, too, for now it look really classical, and hu... boring :S.

Difficult to say what is missing, but you've strong and interesting parts... it just need a little bit more "fun" or "crazy" somewhere :)

Sorry if I'm lacking the vocabulary to say this in a more constructive way!

 

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War-of-the-worlds-War-Machine.png

SJC_0591.jpg

One of these in the background

Martian-war-machine-hg-wells-997345_400_

 

Tagline could be: "They came to CONQUER the EARTH!"

 

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As a stand alone picture or design it looks fine to me but, it doesn't shout out War of the Worlds to me. There are iconic images that go with the title and there are none of them on display here.  

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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8 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

The tricolour eye is iconic so that needs to replace the red semicircle at the top, and the aliens long sucker fingers need to be shown as they are iconic too, I'd also change the planet to a green or red.

Hi!

I  made the design based in the description given in the book:

They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils—indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large, dark-colored eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak.

Somewhere else it says that they have a V-shaped beak, so that's why it looks like it's amiling.

 

11 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Also move the H G Wells up a bit and add a tagline. 

That's a good idea. Thanks!

 

8 minutes ago, Wosven said:

And, perhaps again because of the black background, I feel it need more interaction between the four elements: red planet, title, alien, Earth. For now they look like a strong centered column in the middle.  

Yeah, I still don't have a good idea about making them look like a whole instead of just different parts put in place.

 

9 minutes ago, Wosven said:

I think you can play more with the font of the title, too, for now it look really classical, and hu... boring :S.

I went directly to something classic because of the time this book was written, but I'll try something else.

 

9 minutes ago, Aammppaa said:

The Martian looks very cute… is that what you are trying to achieve? 

Not exactly, but that's what I can do considerin the description given by the author. D:

 

6 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Tagline could be: "They came to CONQUER the EARTH!"

That's a good one!

 

7 minutes ago, AffinityJules said:

There are iconic images that go with the title and there are none of them on display here.

Could you mention any of those elements? The Tripods? The Cylinder? The Heat Ray?

 

Best regards and thanks for your time and feedback. :)

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14 minutes ago, Mithferion said:

I went directly to something classic because of the time this book was written, but I'll try something else.

You could have gone SF-classical font ;) (I don't know why, but I'm thinking about old Blade Runner poster or books)

SF fonts

Edited by Wosven
Posted before completed :S
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The first and most recognisable would be fact that everything came in 3's.

For those who know the book there would be the image of a tripod looking over the armour plated Thunder Child before it sank it.

And not forgetting the Martian heat ray.

The red weed.

There is more but I need to think about it a bit.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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The original Movie is the best, even with the wire visible on the space craft.

I think everyone of us would do this cover differently.

I think this is a pretty good retro poster.

MV5BYTViNjlmM2ItMmRhZC00ZDhkLWE2NTQtNzVi

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2 hours ago, Wosven said:

You could have gone SF-classical font ;) (I don't know why, but I'm thinking about old Blade Runner poster or books)

SF fonts

I'll take a look to them.

 

2 hours ago, AffinityJules said:

For those who know the book there would be the image of a tripod looking over the armour plated Thunder Child before it sank it. 

One of the best parts of the book, indeed.

 

2 hours ago, affinity4Christ15 said:

not a fan of the font at all. I wouldn't use trite overused typeface in this, it's way too cool for that! 

I'll make some tries and then I'll post them here.

 

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

The original Movie is the best, even with the wire visible on the space craft.

When I was a child, the movie was what introduced me to the story; after that, some years later, I read the book.

 

Again, thank you all for the time and your points of view.

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Sorry but if you had not wrote the words "War of the Worlds" on your image I would not have had a clue what it was supposed to illustrate.

War of the Worlds (the original) was a classic . There is so much uniqueness and imagery now associated with it that any new attempt of a book cover should be instantly recognisable as War of the Worlds. Forget the book and it's description of the spaceships, death rays and aliens most people will remember the film version of the book and will base their perceptions/expectations on that.

Currently your book cover could have been anything Alien related.

 

aliens.jpg

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For me, if you want to do a book cover that is immediately recognisable as "War of the Worlds" then you need to use tripods.

The descriptions of the Martians themselves in the book are few and far between and, as far as I remember, we only see a single tentacle/arm in the 1953 film and in the 2005 film we maybe saw just a hand or something (if anything). My memory isn't too good but the physical form of the Martians isn't really the focus of any of the variations of the story. Disembodied leathery brains with big eyes and a beak, nothing that has any real relevance to the story itself. They could have been lizards or snails or big leaping thumbs, their form wasn't important.

The heat ray is a memorable weapon but difficult to convey in an illustration without it just looking like any old laser (unless you show something melting). The red weed is more of an afterthought in most variations of the story - including the original - and isn't really important (you could remove it entirely and the story is pretty much the same).

Have a look at the cover for the official sequel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Massacre-Mankind-Authorised-Sequel-Worlds-ebook/dp/B014SV4TM6
Take away all of the text and it's still immediately obvious what the book contains - big alien machines destroying stuff.

Having said that, this book: http://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-space-machine-1976.html blends "War of the Worlds" and "The Time Machine" and has a few different covers, none of which have anything to do with tripods. (The story is pretty good but the covers don't give you much of an idea of what it's about.)

For me, the image I get when I think of "War of the Worlds" is the Jeff Wayne album cover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Wayne's_Musical_Version_of_The_War_of_the_Worlds
Tripod, check; Thunderchild, check; Heat ray, check; Victorian writing, check. Job done.

P.S. I like the illustration - nice artwork, shadows and effects - but, as with carl123, I just don't think it says "War of the Worlds" to me.

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9 hours ago, carl123 said:

Forget the book and it's description of the spaceships, death rays and aliens most people will remember the film version of the book and will base their perceptions/expectations on that. 

I see. Seems to be a case where the film's imaginery surpased the book itself, in the mind of people. I thought the planets (Mars and Earth) was enough to give the impression. I see I was wrong.

 

9 hours ago, carl123 said:

Currently your book cover could have been anything Alien related.

It's true.

 

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

My memory isn't too good but the physical form of the Martians isn't really the focus of any of the variations of the story.

Even the original book says that the Handling Machine seemed to have more life that the martians themselves.

 

4 hours ago, GarryP said:

P.S. I like the illustration - nice artwork, shadows and effects - but, as with carl123, I just don't think it says "War of the Worlds" to me.

Thanks. At least the image itself wasn't a disaster. :P

 

From what I gatter, the key common point would be tripods, more like anything else. Considering that, I will work on another illustration after making some sketches. Thanks again.

Best regards!

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You're welcome. As I said, the image is nice, just maybe that it's been applied to something it's not quite right for. Or I could be talking complete rubbish.

For general book cover ideas I like to look at this article every now and again: https://www.canva.com/learn/how-to-design-book-covers/
There are lots of great insights and tips with examples of some excellent covers.
For me, one of the best takeaway ideas from the article is: "Think of your cover design like a movie trailer." Grab the potential reader with an interesting image that makes them want to pick the book up.

However, even after I've said what I said in my earlier post, it might be worth thinking about a more "symbolic" concept instead of the more literal idea of tripods smashing stuff up. In movie trailer terms, instead of going down the "Transformers" route of a series of obvious chase/crash/explosion scenes you could go down the route of those films where you see the trailer and at the end you're just thinking "What the heck was all that about?". I can't think of a good example at the moment but they're usually for horror films where you get lots of quick cuts that don't really show you anything but do leave you intrigued.

I've attached a very quick and dirty example of an idea I had. My version is horrible - a couple of minutes with some stock photos and, yes, I've used the alien from "Alien" - but maybe there's something that can be done with it in the right hands. Or it can just be forgotten, it's probably not a very good idea in the first place.

wwexperiment.JPG

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I like the cover, and it draws interest, but I do feel it's lacking certain details. Something I was taught in a class on storytelling is that the title usually takes up 1/3 of the page. The title looks rather small, and the alien (which I personally like) is the main focus. The title needs to shout out at the viewer as well. And perhaps have the blackness of space have starry skies. There is a lot of negative "space" there.

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On 8/20/2018 at 8:44 AM, GarryP said:

For general book cover ideas I like to look at this article every now and again: https://www.canva.com/learn/how-to-design-book-covers/
There are lots of great insights and tips with examples of some excellent covers.
For me, one of the best takeaway ideas from the article is: "Think of your cover design like a movie trailer." Grab the potential reader with an interesting image that makes them want to pick the book up.

Nice! I'll give it a read.

 

On 8/20/2018 at 8:44 AM, GarryP said:

However, even after I've said what I said in my earlier post, it might be worth thinking about a more "symbolic" concept instead of the more literal idea of tripods smashing stuff up.

At first, I didn't want to add Tripods because tons and tonds of editions of the book have them; so, yeah, I wanted to be "original". And from what I gather, for some people, they are a must in the sensen of showing that it's this story.

 

On 8/20/2018 at 8:44 AM, GarryP said:

Or it can just be forgotten, it's probably not a very good idea in the first place

Same route as I did, in the sense of showing Mars and the Earth. :P

 

4 hours ago, Bri-Toon said:

Something I was taught in a class on storytelling is that the title usually takes up 1/3 of the page.

I was afraid of hiding Mars, but after some explorations, it doesn't look bad. I'll take that in consideration.

 

4 hours ago, Bri-Toon said:

And perhaps have the blackness of space have starry skies. There is a lot of negative "space" there.

Yeah, I found something on Pixabay that might help to fill adequately that much space.

 

Thanks again for your comments. I'll read the article about book covers and I will make changes, both with this martian and with something else, like the Tripods.

Best regards!

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On 8/19/2018 at 11:39 AM, Aammppaa said:

The Martian looks very cute… is that what you are trying to achieve?

The top reflection in the eyes should perhaps be red (reflecting Mars at the top of the image)?

I am in agreement with Aammppaa...I understand that you are going from the description in the book...so keep with that. But it does look too cute. Adding some of the 'fingers' around the planet might help, making the eyes reflection read and maybe the beak reddish also.  

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Hi there!

Just wanted to shre with you the way I imagine the tripods, also going with the description of the book (no intended to be for the cover, just to share and see if someone agrees with it).

200113-082518_b.png

Best regards!

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