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Just wondering, has anybody here hired an artist to do cover/character work for their novel? Any recommendations? If you don't mind me asking, what is a fair price for such work?
Posts: 500 | Registered: May 2008
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Are you just trying to do something for yourself? (What I mean to say is, you're not looking for a cover to submit, right?)
When I get bored or frustrated, I break out my sketch pad and draw my own images (usually not people--I'm not good with people.) I did a "just for fun" cover using photoshop and images I found on the internet once. It came out really well. And I spend hours looking for pictures of people that look the way my characters look in my head so I have something to go back to when I need a visual reminder.
But to answer your question, I've got a friend that charges somewhere between $10 and $50 for his work (he is a tattoo artist, but draws as well, so I don't know if this is a good rate or not.) I think it depends on the level of professionalism.
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Yeah - this is just for me. I'm not planning on submitting cover art for my book to an editor - but I'd like some imagery to use when representing my work in various forms, in particular online.
I tried playing around with sketches for my characters and the results were less than amazing. I'm better with words. Maps, I can have fun and make interesting stuff. Drawing humans... not so much.
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Lol, yeah, that's how I am. I draw maps, important objects, that kind of thing. Not people. (I tried once and actually laughed at my own attempt.) But that's what I got photoshop for. Still, it would be nice to have a sketch of something made for you. I can understand that desire.
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I'll scribble out a map or floor plan or such, but not sketches of the characters. My career in school art classes foundered on people-drawing skills---for reasons I don't really understand, I just didn't want to do it---though, a few years later (and many years ago now), I took it up as a private pursiut, but soon dropped it.
The only story of mine ever to inspire someone to do artwork fell during my Internet Fan Fiction period. I didn't find out about it until years after the fact, when I stumbled upon it by accident. Actually, I thought it was a fair rendering from the description I provided in the story, but not an exact rendering.
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Do you follow any web comics that have an art style you like? Some of those artists will do work on commission.
I actually considered this when I started my blog, but ended up tabling it for the time being. The artist I queried would do a character sketch for about $50, depending on what I wanted.
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I've done some illustration work for Kevin J. Anderson, Roswell 6, a back cover for Deb Hoag and do regular illustrations ofr Flash Fiction Online.
Posts: 3687 | Registered: Jan 2007
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The pic on my blog (http://tamesonyip.blogspot.com/) I got by telling my brother in law to make me cover art. He can do fairly good realistic stuff, but I gave him some samples and talked about my ideas and he came up with that design which I really liked- better than anything I had come up with. I got my map by whining to my husband (map is just for me, not like publication quality).
I am going to do the free proof copy offered by create space to nano winners and use the cover art for that. I am going to put highest privacy for everything, just do the proof copy and I am using a different title than what I will eventually publish under (For the Gods is a working title and I am not happy with it at all). I also know that I am going to edit more and all that, but my dad has been bugging me for a hard copy version. It will also be like 18 point font because my dad is getting old.
That's a pretty cool cover! Much better than I could ever draw myself. I threw the cover I photoshopped up on my myspace page (not that anyone uses myspace anymore!) and it's all images I took from the internet. I wish I had something original like this!
posted
Whoa - lots of replies overnight. I dig the webcomics mentioned, but I was hoping for more of a realistic/gritty look than cartoony, which is more the direction the linked ones lean. I like TamesonYip's cover - abstract works for me (though not so much for character art), and I definitely dig Inarticulate's work (the human stuff; aliens don't work well in my fantasy book).
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