(Unofficial) Book covers- Neomorphs

[TF.]

Good evening all.

After a few hours in Photoshop, Fireworks and Squirlz Morph, I've come up with my first book cover. The template is taken from book #49 from the main series, modified only slightly to fit #57 of capnnerefir's Neomorphs.

The rhino, man (Santorelli) and clouds are each taken randomly from Google Images so it's almost definitely unusable as an actual cover, due to copyright and all that. The colour scheme was meant to match up with the skin/eye scheme of the Howlers that feature so strongly in #57, but that can be changed pretty easily. I can make alterations to the quote, font, images and so on pretty easily so feel free to make suggestions. Hints for the font for the title and spine would be really helpful because, at this stage, I've just stretched Ariel Bold into the rough shape.

A fair bit of credit goes to capnnerefir for his awesome fan fiction, from which The Weapon was one of my personal favourites (time travel + fixing up plot holes + circling back to the past are all great).

Here it is-


Here's the full-size link.

In addition, here are some of the other little animations that Squirlz has done.


Please post any feedback or suggestions and I might change what I can. If I get a good response I might start on a few more covers, or I can post up the photoshop files of the template for anyone else to have a go.

Regards,
TF.



edit: on a side note, I've realised why the Animorphs cover designer chose to use clouds as the background for most of the books- there's a wide variety of cloud pictures available and its easy to blend with the morphed figures, hiding some mistakes.



another edit: I'm having trouble working out which people to use on these sorts of covers. The people have to pretty famous, preferably actors, so that there're a wide variety of pictures available on Google. They also have to be appropriate to the characters, obviously.
Shawn Ashmore's the obvious choice for Jake. He's famous and actually played him on tv.
Rachel's a problem. I'm not sure who to use. Brooke Nevin doesn't have a lot of pictures around.
Marco's almost impossible. Boris Cabrera, from the tv show, is now nonexistent and I haven't found any other suitable hispanic guys.
Tobias is tricky again, and he also should reflect the description of 'the eyes of a killer' from the books.
For Santorelli on future books, though I've heard there won't be any, I would probably go for a younger version of Bruce Willis. I think that matches the various descriptions from the books.
Audrey Tautou's my first choice for Jeanne just because there are plenty of pictures of her.

And Al and Ax are pretty well impossible without recycling old pictures.
Suggestions for actors would be great.
I don't have any ideas for Cassie or Melissa or James or David (in the background of Mouse->morph).







EDIT: (collating it all)

Here's what's done so far-













My current choices of models-
Jake: Shawn Ashmore
Tobias: ???
Rachel: Brooke Nevin?
Cassie: Claire-Hope Ashitey or Kerry Washington
Marco: Kiowa Gordon
Jeanne: Marion Cotrillard
Santorelli: young Bruce Willis (though I don't expect any more books with him as the protagonist)
Melissa: ????
James: Steve Byers
David: Mitch Hewer
Al/Ax/Elfangor: whatever I can find

[das1234]

that's actually really good!
i dont think you have to concentrate so heavily on the actors, because thayre often smaller than the animals and the morph 'animation' has the animal standing in front of them most of the time, covering them.
as for the color of the clouds, in this particular case i think its maybe edited a bit too much as there are these big artifacts visible on some of the orange-to green transitions, since these colors are very complementary its hard to make a smooth transition between them without going over brown.
but still, its really good, and i hope you make more.
i'm quite interested to see how you are going to do the ones with aliens involved

[Ellimist]

^^ That's advice from an expert.

As for me, I'll say, the cover is fabulous!

Audrey Tautou's my first choice for Jeanne just because there are plenty of pictures of her.

IMO, Audrey's too girly for Jeanne. How about Marion Cotillard?

[TF.]

that's actually really good!

Thanks!

as for the color of the clouds, in this particular case i think its maybe edited a bit too much as there are these big artifacts visible on some of the orange-to green transitions, since these colors are very complementary its hard to make a smooth transition between them without going over brown.

I might be able to fix some of these bits. I'll see.

i'm quite interested to see how you are going to do the ones with aliens involved

Imagination, resourcefulness, and probably stealing some other people's fan art. Or not.

Audrey Tautou's my first choice for Jeanne just because there are plenty of pictures of her.

IMO, Audrey's too girly for Jeanne. How about Marion Cotillard?

Sounds good to me. Tautou was just the first google hit for 'french actress' but Cotillard makes a fine replacement.


Thanks guys.

[capnnerefir]

Very neat work, T.F. It's very flattering.

It's a nice editng job - definitely better than the time I tried to do this myself.

That was a good choice for Santorelli - appropriate body shape, and a very fortuitous pose.

You can download the Animorphs font from this site; it was also used by the Smashing Pumpkins.

A fair bit of credit goes to capnnerefir for his awesome fan fiction, from which The Weapon was one of my personal favourites (time travel + fixing up plot holes + circling back to the past are all great).

Thanks. I'm actually really surprised that people enjoyed that one - I didn't think anyone would find a story that wound up in 2nd century China very interesting. That was back when I was just writing for myself - I didn't start 'publishing' until book 63, when I realized that I had a lot written and it was going to waste. I kind of regret what happened to Santorelli - there's a lot more I could have gotten out of him. Maybe some day...

[TF.]

You can download the Animorphs font from this site; it was also used by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Got it, but the N and E in the title don't work quite as well as I'd like and it's the lowercase titles that I'm most concerned about.

Very neat work, T.F. It's very flattering.

It's a nice editng job - definitely better than the time I tried to do this myself.

That was a good choice for Santorelli - appropriate body shape, and a very fortuitous pose.

Thanks.
Have you got any preferences for Jeanne, Melissa, David, James, etc? Marco, Cassie, Rachel and Tobias problematic as well.

edit: I'd be quite honoured if the final version of one of these ended up in the pdfs of the books.

I'm actually really surprised that people enjoyed that one - I didn't think anyone would find a story that wound up in 2nd century China very interesting. That was back when I was just writing for myself - I didn't start 'publishing' until book 63, when I realized that I had a lot written and it was going to waste. I kind of regret what happened to Santorelli - there's a lot more I could have gotten out of him. Maybe some day...

I don't know for sure if anyone else enjoyed it but it was definitely one of my favourites (from book 55 onwards and maybe even the whole series ). More of him would definitely be a good thing.

[TF.]

(May the forum gods please forgive me for this double post...)


More covers!

I've put together #66 and all the stuff for 56, 58, 59, 63, 64, 69 and 72 except the actual people and morphs.

The backgrounds and basic template stuff honestly isn't very hard to do, and then the morphs can be dumped on top of it. If anyone has suggestions or decent pictures for Rachel, Cassie, Marco, etc. etc. I'd be grateful. (on that topic, it's surprisingly hard to find even specified actors in convenient positions. Would it be too much to ask for a basic fullbody front view of Ashmore? ) Criticisms of the background colours are also welcome, as some of them are a bit strange.

Anyway, feel free to comment and all that. Enjoy.




(This one will eventually be Marco -> Fly, as advised on the page wherever it is)


(This will be Jake-> cockroach)


(This'll be Rachel->bald eagle)


(This one will be Jeanne->leopard)


(Rachel->Yeerk) (this'll probably end up being a big grey slug with shortened stalks)


(Jake->owl)


(Cassie->polar bear)



Also, I do realise that the David->lion cover should probably have his original body in the background like Tobias' books often had. I'd definitely put it in there (it's a lot easier than the morphs) but I don't have any idea of who to use as David.

Another addition- I've taken the tag lines from capnnerefir's text but #72's still missing one (and the colours need changing a little )

[alpPDCjr12]

Whoooaa that's really cool, it must have taken lots of work! Props bro!

[TF.]

Whoooaa that's really cool, it must have taken lots of work! Props bro!

Cheers. I will update soon.

[Kilmeinbed]

how did you make those like photoshop or do you have a better program?