Final Book Cover

Here is my final book cover.

I am quite pleased with the outcome, after being very unsure of whether anything I could produce on photoshop could turn out any good or whether I could actually succeed with producing this cover digitally. The way the watercolour of the fish creates a shine when the brightness is decreased on photoshop, creating a subtle illusion of light shining on water. This also creates a nice depth, the darker fish falling back into the water further in the background and really making the closer fish stand out. This alteration of brightness also changed the colours for the better, muting them to more subtle, earthy tones. I think this allows them to incorporate nicely with the background, whereas before they were way top harsh and 'flat'; the contrast between the two was too high making the overall image unnatural and look fake.

The subtle background also works, the fading from pure black to more textured grey tones again creating the illusion of water. Also, scanning in watercolour paper, inverting the colours and layering on top of my ink wash made an effective shimmer to the wash.

I feel like the risk in layout on the front payed off but I feel like the fish could have been better executed. On it's own it looks a bit flat and separate from the background, whereas on the back cover they have each other for context and to look part more of a whole.