Anatomy of a Book Cover

I thought it might be interesting to show you how I put a book cover together. I've chosen book one in the series as that cover has gone through the most changes. The animated GIF below gives you an idea of how the image is built up.

Now, let's see how I did it...

Above, is the first version of the cover. I hadn't designed the Space Navy logo at this point, so the text is very basic. I also didn't like the angle that the model of the "Might of Fortitude" was photographed from. Other than that, all the basic elements are there.

This is a much later version, after the cover was re-designed extensively. I was still using the United Worlds logo to give the series number on this one. Also, the book was still marketed under the "Josiah Trenchard Series", rather than the "Space Navy Series". Below, I'll show you how I constructed the final cover which is used on Amazon. It was produced using Photoshop, a model that I built and photographs of other elements, including drawings. Each element is on a separate layer, from the bottom up. I've not included all the layers, just the major additions to the cover.

First, I started with a copyright free star-scape. I've used a filter to give the impression of a solar flare from the top right. The stars have been blurred slightly to place them in the distance as the spaceship will be the focus of attention.

The next elements are the asteroids. These were pebbles that I collected on Marsden beach, South Shields, in the North East of the U.K. I photographed these and then laboriously cut each one out in Photoshop and dropped them into the image. Some of them have had a directional motion blur added to give the impression of movement. The stones further back or nearer to the observer have been blurred all over to give a feeling of focus in the middle distance, where the spaceship will be placed.

Using layers in Photoshop is a little like using old fashioned animation cels, layered one on top of each other to compose the final image. The trick is working out where each layer will fall. The next layers are the engine glow and a missile that will appear behind the spaceship. The missile and exhaust cloud were originally hand drawn in black ink on white paper. They were then scanned and added to the image, coloured and blurred.

After that, a general glow was added behind the ship, where the engines would shine onto the hull.

Next, the "Might of Fortitude" was added. This was a model that I built. It was photographed, cut out in Photoshop and added over the background. The edges of the ship were blurred to make it blend into the background and a filter was applied to make the image more stylized.

A green glow was applied over the top of the spaceship. This is to be a reflection of the weapons firing, which will be added in the next few steps.

The foreground missiles were added...

Then the plasma blasts from the cannons were added. These were originally hand drawn and scanned, just like the missiles. Then a filter was applied and the transparency adjusted, so that the background could show through a little.

Highlights were added to the cannon barrels and a general green glow over the lower left of the image.

Then black shadows which will appear under the text.

The final image is complete with the addition of the white text. There are fifty separate layers. Including building the model, photographing the elements and drawing the missiles and plasma blasts, that's a great deal of hours to produce one image. I produce all my own book covers alongside writing the books. I hope you enjoy them.