Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Feedback required (Patreon)

Published:
2022-07-04 20:23:36
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

This is the rough draft of the cover for Industrial Strength Magic. Cool, uncool? How could it be more cool?How could it be less uncool? Please, Blow this thread up!I personally think the guy's a little too beefy to be Perry, but (shrug) And maybe a teeny bit more eyecandy for Hardcase to gawk at, but that's about all the notes I have.

Files

Comments

RedInkQuill

I see some orange sparks to go with all the blue, maybe adding some orange sky in the background. Some burnt sky with all the clouds and smoke. Just a thought.

Gerald Monroe

His armor doesn't appear to be made of cardboard. That's his whole schtick. This just looks like a generic fantasy hero. Also way too broad shouldered etc. This is supposed to be a teenager who has recently cheated himself into being ripped, more like spider man. He shouldn't be that well developed this looks like an adult bodybuilder. Finally why would he stand there like a badass? His whole schtick is nonlinear wizard play - he's not gonna take a superhero pose he's gonna distract you to use his stooge brain cells to cast a spell on you instead.

vetro 26

This is honestly really cool. I thought the armor was a little more bulky but other than that its really nice.

Pastor Joubert

I don’t like the direction the swords are pointed. More like hes under arrest and the swords are pointed at him lol

Macronomicon

Agreed on musculature of the character and the cardboard, I think the artist will add more corrugation detail into the torn away armor when he starts the final version. i will remind him though. the superhero pose is because...sadly i have to have a bit of heroics in the story. it IS a superhero story, and winning everything from a distance with no risk kills tension. This scene is also kind of a dramatization of the time he ran back into the fight with the prawn like an idiot, even when a third of his cardboard suit was torn off. That kinda stuff. And looking badass is badass.

Gerald Monroe

And longer term none of his abilities require his in person presence. He has gamer perks but they are all extra saves against death. He shouldn't take the field, he should use robots to manufacture drones, where both get the benefits of his perks, and launch drone swarms from the safety of his tinker lair.

Benji

His thighs are tree trunks, seems on a tad extreme for a supposed thin nature of his suit? Or am I misremembering things?

ikorack

Badass like pastor said swords are a little too neat maybe have one or two clashing with something or stabbing into something

Benji

Also the wrists and forarms should be thicker with his magic stuff right? Beyond that seems good to me

Crownfall

Feels super gritty and serious. I don't know if it matches the tone. Maybe it's due to the grayscale coloring

KB

I like it, but it doesn’t say magic to me, more like sci-fi tech and telekinesis. But it is cool.

Crownfall

Suit doesn't look like cardboard to me either

Crownfall

Blowing open the helmet and having him have a shocked expression might also change the tone and be a low budget draw over even if it doesn't match the scene. I feel like messy hair would match the tinker mad scientist energy

SunderGoldmane

My initial thoughts in order. 1) not enough cardboard 2) looks like doom 3) looks like zombies in background at first glance? 4) no prawn? Wait, it’s from prawn perspective? The prawn is number one enemy in this first bit, it would be nice to see what it’s body looks like even if it only takes 1/8th of the cover in the background by smashing a building or tangling with a brawler?

Crownfall

It's very evocative of Bryces iron prince to me. Don't know if that's intentionally but it could be a plus for sales. That cover is also much brighter in color though

SunderGoldmane

I think leaning into “this guy is a high schooler” can’t be wrong. Rn he definitely looks like doom guy wearing master chiefs armor.

Crownfall

Feel like the city in the background having the shield active from the bee sequence and being business as normal could also capture tone of story better. Advertisements for super human enhancement or tinker made goods or like a government defcon alert but for high tide and prawn threat

John Anastacio

Proportions are odd. Thighs are enormous and long. Arms look unusually short. And yeah, no cardboard.

Chunq

Neat. The BFS should definitely not look like Frostmourne. There should be some kind of motif between the swords and his armor so they're identifiable as his. Runes, wizardy circles, iunno. If pure Conan emulation is the goal, then a full helmet is fine. If you're looking for a little humor, then maybe crack open the helmet to reveal a roaring teen inside. I thought he was supposed to be ripping the prawn jaws open? Can't remember what the original prompt was, but I think I liked the idea in writing and I'm not sure this is 100% on it.

Throngler In Chief

Looks like Thighmaster Chief. ...there should totally be a tinker by that hero name that sells "military grade" or "Nexus Grade" excercise equipment.

DeeSharkman

Musculature is a bit much Armor should be cardboard Color scheme should be a bit more cheerful IMO Swords should be pointed up/outward or forward, pointed down looks a bit weird IMO Otherwise very cool, like the combination of scifi armor and floating magical swords

Throngler In Chief

I think replacing the heavily muscled super-soldier looking guy in the middle with a prawn would possibly work better. Especially if it's bucking with a "boxy cardboard Spiderman" holding onto the back of it for dear life.

Throngler In Chief

Honestly, I always pictured the BFS as more "sword without hilt" than "full blown sword" or since he's a tinker a lightsaber looking thing with an actual blade and a hilt that looks kinda like the business end of a hair dryer (to make it seem tech-y).

SunderGoldmane

“More sword than hilt” and “not frostmourne”, I second both of these.

Sanairb

I always thought of Paradox as more Clark Kent physique, less superman.

Gavriel

Cool: Put the swords in the foreground, and have Perry stand back with an obsidian sword, and svelte, hyperweave skinned, artificial muscle type armor: showcasing both his preference for his creations to do the dirty work,band his fallback capabilities Uncool: The legs are waaaaayyyyyy too fat; disproportionately so

Blues

I like it

Carl Mason

The view is bottom up, so not completely unreasonable, but perhaps a bit too much.

Carl Mason

Definitely needs more contrast, i dont know about cheerful so much. Is this supposed to be the arms deal scene or something else?

Hunter Joseph

Is it just me or does it look like he has a gun as a codpiece

0xFFF1

Perry is too badass.

Talespinner Lore

confusing doom slayer vibes. too dark/gritty maybe?

Tyler

It looks too generic supersoldier. You should try to differentiate your cover from the typical military sci. Make the cardboard look more distinct, throw in some barcodes and recycle symbols, and generally make it look more slapdash and held together with superglue. The smoke and anonymous crowd seem too grimdark and serious for the book. Better served with more capes and a dumbass recording

Gavriel

Erm, he looks like a jacked Human up top, like an actual gorilla on the bottom left leg, and he actually looked very, very, very, wide compared to his relatively stubby arms, and tiny head; yeah it's obviously perspective overdone, but I'm not a fan of Perry being in front of his weapons, with a regular bear trap in front; it doesn't properly showcase any event in the story. The story is too good to have it be overlooked for a subpar cover; go look at those covers with an actual model, or close enough; that's the current trend, and it looks awesome seeing movie level effects on a still; look up artist Wlomp (I think that's the artist), that's the style I prefer, and it is probably cheaper than getting a model, or at least more accessible. Personally I would look up the art communities on Reddit to find a style I liked, and work from that point; the priorities for financial success should be: Cover #1 Blurb #2 First Page #3 First Chapter #4 First book #5 Social Media #6 Etc, in order of exposure Although it can be argued that social media can come after the cover or the blurb: the cover is #1

Carl Mason

For you, writing it, yes, story quality is number 1. For reader (or potential reader) interaction and draw the cover is number one. So many people get interested in or dismiss a book based on its cover.

Gavriel

Think of the quality of a book like fishing line, the cover as the lure, the blurb as the smell of the bait, and the first page as the taste of the bait, the first chapter as the hook, and social media as the rod The quality of the book is the thing everything else revolves around, but first you have to get someone to take a look, get a whiff, and take a nibble, before the hook sinks in, meanwhile nothing gets further without the line (as it's pointless without the fishing line) The quality of the book is a force multiplier, and makes a much more valuable pool of readers, but you still need the readers; the core readers may be coming from places where the cover doesn't matter as much (rrl for example), but Amazon has alot more readers, and a few hundred new fantasy books put out daily; I kid you not: most of them aren't real competition, and the ones with awesome covers are 10X+ more likely to get the blurb read, and at that point if the blurb is good (if it isn't it WILL not be read), your first chapter has a 1/5 chance of being read, and if that's good you have a 50% chance of them finishing the book, and a 75% chance of them moving to the rest of them if they liked it; after that they are hooked. All of this assumes you don't absolutely blow each part out of the water, but 5% as opposed to 1/300+ is basically the difference a really good cover makes: that's a 15X simply because it's the first thing anyone sees, and the thing that often decides if they see anything else. Remember that 300+ "new releases", most of which are actual garbage (or releases, particularly of classics), and therefore aren't something even the authors would invest in a great cover for; basically a high production quality cover demonstrates a certain level of confidence that people will actually like the book (in people's heads at least). I used to go through 300+ new releases looking for decent authors every day for a few years (the goal was to have new, good, releases everyday from those I found), the title mattered more to me than the cover when I was serious about finding something new, but casually browsing the cover has to attract attention before the title is even read.

Jeff Wells

To be fair, his current armor isn't cardboard, it's cheap metals like aluminum and such. I do think the first cover should be the cardboard armor though, and this doesn't look like anything I imagine when I think of cardboard armor.

Jeff Wells

My 2 cents: Less dark and gritty (maybe a ray of sunshine landing on Perry?). Perry definitely needs to be scrawnier - he's only just started working out for the first time in his life after all. He can be naturally athletic, but he shouldn't be a swole 35 year old man. Maybe on the cover of Volume 3 he can be this swole. Lastly I've always pictured the swords as much less elaborate, hilt-less blades, but there's something to be said for cool factor on a book's cover so I'd say they aren't a problem. Oh I almost forgot the most important thing! For the first cover his suit should very clearly be made of Cardboard. This suit looks like a standard sci-fi super-soldier.

Ranger Science

Yeah, these. This doesn't indicate any of the inherent humor in the story, but the overall design looks good.

Alex Lindsay

I would not expect the humor that is such a part of the story if I saw this cover. If you could see the much smaller less built kid inside with an expression not so fierce then maybe?

Carl Mason

I did not expect the actual hilts on his energy projection swords. Shaped for it, sure why not. Having actual metal hilts of an apparently different material on them?

Macronomicon

in reality, they do not, but we're leaning a bit into rule of cool for the cover.

Carl Mason

I actually think they would look cooler without the hilts, just continue the blue glow. Get some different color in the background, contrast the image, it'll look gooood.

Alex hodge

So my thoughts of what his first suit would be is something like a transformer, Blocky, hard lined. As detailed as the muscles are it would have to be paper mache or something like that. Not exactly cardboard. Maybe look up some cosplay robots as they're the closest thing to what he wants to make stuff out of/ look like.

Ben Tew

The blue color tint to me seems very common in the genre. The image would stand out more in it was recolored to yellow, green or orange.

Danielle Sanchez

This is old as fuck and you probably have it figured out, but this would be a great book 2 cover probably. You should totally make the first book the goofy ass cardboard and tinfoil suit.

Kabir Kumar

I thought the swords were pink.