Thanks for noticing and paying attention! You've got a great eye...this is why covers need to be beta previewed as well as beta readers.

Actually it's not a mesh glitch, it's more of a body part posing thing.

What you are seeing is his wing as it attaches to the collarbone/spine and the trapezius musscles.

His wing bones are scaley and they merge at that point with his back, depending on how high his wings are posed there is eclipsing of his body and the wings which are separate objects.

Thanks!

Something like this maybe (which isn't very good, but it took me all of a half hour to do)

Edited by user Wednesday, February 18, 2015 5:06:40 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Be careful with the cover. It is the first thing people will see. They say that you should never judge a book by its cover but that is what people do.

I have some apprehensions about the minimalistic cover design:

For one, it is such a popular method nowdays that you run the risks of appearing unoriginal. Publishers have expend a great deal of forune to make their covers memorable. Many book covers are work of art.

Second, such cover design is often appear just so-so, nothing remarkable. In a field of book covers, such minimalistc design would never stand out. The present book cover might not pretty, but it sure did catch my attention when I see it. That demon and ring of fire makes me stop.

Third, it say nothing of the contents. There apear to be a sort of language in these book covers. By just looking at them, you can tell what is inside the book. (Erotic) Romances has those men showing their muscular abdomen and women showing off their legs sometimes showing the couple in a rather risque situation, or if it was more conservative, just the couple smilling happily. Children books are colorful and filled with cartoony or fun images. Dark fantasy is all grungy and dirty and dark, and often has barbarian looking guys in it. These are mostly because of people's expectations but the point is still there, the cover speak for themselves.

One thing I want to be presented in the book cover is the humour. It is one of the greatest aspect of the book. If not that, then the fantasy.

@Flakes

I really don't like to offend you but it really show in your work that it just takes a half hour to do. You don't want to send that message to prospective readers.

@Tizzy

Hmmm. I have been putting my work on hold because I want to see what Tom the demon looks in the new cover. I should have not been waiting isn't it? It is also an excuse for being inadequate artit. LOL.

Really need more practice.

Well my sister is really into art and photography so I asked her to draw a demon head or maybe a whole demon that resembles Tom and I will send it up when she finishes. All she would want if you decide to change the cover to hers would be credit for the artwork, it would be the first book cover she would have done and if you guys like it and want her to do the new book or whatever you could talk to her about fees or whatnot. I think she just wants to see if she can do one to start with lol.

@Threefinger

Sounds awesome, you must go far beyond drawing though for it to be used as a book cover.

It varies depending on the genre & themes of the story. For Into the Abyss... I'd say stronger on the symbology since that is so important to the story. I don't think that there are that many scenes on that would help to capture the essence of the story.

If you do a character, it'd pretty much have to feature Tom, but what would Tom be doing that helps to summarize the whole theme of the book? I can't think of anything.

The big themes I saw:
- Slavery
- Evil is as evil does; not by virtue of being
- Human vs. Demon
- Is Tom becoming evil because he has turned into a demon?

Symbols...
Chains, marionette?

Don't know about unifying themes from book 2 or book 3 or book 4. Would need a synopsis.

Maybe each cover should show the central conflict from each book? Not always a scene mind you. A central conflict in Into the Abyss is truth vs. belief.

For a Cover Art I prefer Scenes. It is because they are easy to understand and often is a very unified image. They are also closely resembling traditional artworks which is to my liking. The problem I had with this though is that many are overdone confusing mess, or halfhearted in boring, awkward or ugly picture.

I'm not so into Montages. One reason is that montages seem to be very inconsistent from cover to cover or too similar from cover to cover and I don't like both cases. The first case makes the books seem unrelated, and the other is just plain lazy. Another reason is that they often seem slapdash. They often resemble some children poster project than professional cover art. Of course there are beautiful ones but my experience says that this is rare.

Figures. Another one that is easy to understand that has close tie to traditional artwork. This one has strong impact too becuase we are easily drawn to figures and faces. I think this one is the safest choice for cover art. But then this requires an artist that is really good at figures. I have seen book covers with figures that are unappealing, awkward, weak or stiff. There is also the "uncanny valley" that may 3D figures suffer from.

Symbol/Abstract. I'm really against this. First, this doesn't reflect the rather fantasy medieval vibe and humour of the book. Second, unless your a wellknown author, such cover often isn't really eye catching enough. I have seen this kind of covers and they tell almost nothing about the book to me. I had to really puzzle out the title, read the back, and read samples and other tedious stuff. I often judge these kind of covers on title. If the title doesn't seem interesting... well...

If the book they are fighting over had a distinctive symbol on it like the neverending stories double ouroboros then you could use that.

I don't recall anything like that being mentioned about the book though.

Edited by user Wednesday, February 25, 2015 11:12:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

In my opinion it's not about preference. Here's my two cents on the topic (I've been giving it a bit of thought for a while now)

First, as was said earlier in the topic people judge a book by the cover. The cover itself can say a lot about the book. For example a professional looking cover gives the impression of a well-written book. There are tons of books on amazon which have some abstract twirly symbol for a cover image generally saying to the customers "this is an indie book, don't expect much from it". There are also tons of books with stock photos for a cover. When used unmodified the stock photo can easily confuse the customer into thinking they already viewed the book. Now, if the cover is done by a pro artist, it shows. The real question is "what does it show?" Here's an example: I've seen a few covers with a female on the front. You'd think a book like that would have a female protagonist, you click on it to take a closer look, and you find out the book either has some female antagonist or a female side character.

People don't just judge a book by its cover, people read the themes in the book by the cover. You know the book is comedic in nature if the art is cartooney, you know it's about magic if there's some mysterious-looking light on the cover, you know the book contains romantic themes when you see a male hugging a female on the cover. And if you like what you see, you take a closer look at the book. In case of Demons of Astlan series, you might want to go for a somewhat cartoonish art or showing characters performing things incongruent with what is usually expected from them (a ganja-smoking stoned demon is one such example), as this is a portal fantasy some magic fantasy land in the background would demonstrate that the action is happening in a different world. And, of course placing the main character in the foreground would show who the main character is (or you could place some secondary characters in the background to demonstrate who else the book is about). Since the main character is a human-turned-demon this could be shown with a partial transformation - e.g. a demon hand, a demon's eye or a face half of which is demonic, while the other half is human (think Batman's Two-Face or the way they did the posters for Face-Off).

And so there you are: a picture that's worth a thousand words :)