What can I do to improve this? It's a cover for a novella

>>259739
put one big kanji in the center and make the rest very small (but legible) forming a circle around the center. also remove the black line under and research shodo calligraphy. and don't use 100% black or white.

AT LEAST MAKE THEM ALIGN

>>259744
Thanks anon. The black line is to cover up my name.

>>259748
Sorry anon, I'll male sure to align them.

>>259739
what's it about? It's hard to design a book cover without knowing what to expect

>>259923
The "spine" of the plot is loosely based on the plot of the movie "Seven Samurai". Each of the Samurai represent the Seven Deadly Sins, and they also represent the contrasting Seven Virtues. So basically 7 of the main characters start off representing one of the sins or virtues, and at the end of the story they represent the opposite of that sin or virtue.

The Sins are the Christian ones, whereas the Virtues are the ones from Samurai code code of honor or something, which is what I used for the cover.

File: seven_samurai_by_sulley1993-d38knqy.jpg (33KB, 775x1031px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259923
>>259925
Oh, also, I was going for a design similar to the one that they used in the movie.

File: samurai.jpg (82KB, 1198x1500px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259926
Is it in Japanese, or do you plan on adding English text like this?

Or are you just leaving it ambiguous?

>>259931
The cover? I want it to stay in Japenese. The only English text on the cover will be my name, so yeah it'll be ambiguous.

>>259931
>>259933
Oh also, yeah I should probably mention. I don't even have a title for the book decided yet, but it'll probably be "Seven Samurai", which will be shown on the first page of the book.

File: samuraiCombined.png (1MB, 2336x3022px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 2336x3022px

I think it really depends on how close you'd like to stay to the film. You can definitely make unique covers, but it seems like you really want to stick with your current design.

>>259935
Woah, this is incredible. If you could suggest some unique cover designs, I'd be fine with changing it up.

Did you make those designs just then? I really like the top three.

File: samurai2.png (132KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259936
Yeah, I'm just making some designs quickly. All can be improved if you decide you like any. I'll be posting as I make them, but they're all concepts; most of the components will be stolen from Google Images.

>>259938
If it's not too much trouble for you, could you possibly post the top three separately, and the far left one on the second row? I really like those designs.

And the design you just posted is something that I'm also considering. I've been looking for a nice high-res image of a Samurai that I could use as a cover.

File: top1.png (50KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259939
The characters on the top row are a bit messed up. I don't know Japanese, so I just stole them from your original image; however, there were some problems with interpolation and some of the whitespace is gone.

File: top2.png (47KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259939

File: top3.png (343KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259939
Here's the last on the top row.

File: mid1.png (23KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259939
This is the far left on the middle row.
The characters are the numbers one through seven.

>>259944
Sweet, thank you for making these designs anon, they all look great and I really appreciate it.

Did you get the background image from >>259938
from google images as it is, or did you edit anything with it?

I would like to use it as maybe a back-cover, but I don't know how I'd change the "Your name" part to, well, my name.

And one more thing, is the font that you used just standard Times New Roman, or is it something else?

File: samuraiWatercolorExample.png (110KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

110KB, 779x1007px

This one is intended to have the same text style as >>259931, but I would need to write it with a brush and scan it (I can do it, but it will take time).

>>259945
The background image on >>259938 is from the first image result for "samurai face." It was limited to 2 colors, which I then changed to have low contrast (I can't remember the name for doing that).

The font is Playfair Display. It has a free license. You can get it from Google Fonts.

If you'd like me to finalize a design or change the name, I'd be happy to. I can do it by email if you'd prefer not to share your information here.

File: samuraiFace.png (115KB, 779x1007px) Image search: [Google]

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>>259945
This is the background for the samurai picture.

>>259948
Thank you for the help.

I think I'll go with having both a front and back cover. For the front cover, I'd like one of the three from the top row. Although I really like the grey on black, and the white on the background with a blurred image, the book also uses the colors black and white as a theme in the book with "good" and "evil". Do you think it'd be worth going with a slightly less nicer design and have something that relates to a theme of the book?

As for the back cover, either >>259948 or >>259949 would be great, and I'd like them to have only the title of the book. I think that maybe if I go with a dark front cover, the one with the red text would be good as a back, or if I go with a light front cover the one with the samurai's face would be good.

>>259953
Whoops, I mean to say red symbols, not red text.

>>259953
Are you trying to sell this book? That will greatly affect whether you should use the cover as a statement or as a way to catch a customer's eye.

>>259955
>Are you trying to sell this book?

Most likely, yes. It won't be available in your local bookstore, as I definitely won't be able to get published by one of the bigger publishers, but it'll be on Amazon and stuff.

Do you think that maybe the front cover should be something to catch the customer's eye, and maybe the back cover could be the one with a relation to the theme?

>>259956
Yes.
If I saw >>259739 on Amazon, I'd scroll right past it.
>>259948 is still simple, but it has some major differences: There is color, there is a title that warrants a closer look at the cover, and there are English characters prominently displayed to appeal to an English-speaking audience.

>>259957
Yeah, I agree. Looks like it'll be >>259948 as the front cover then.

I think I could most likely change the black color to red in the book, to match the cover.

Do you think that >>259949 would be good as a back cover? Maybe just by itself without any text as the title would also be on the front cover.

>>259959
OK. But now we have some issues. I can't really just steal the work of other people, so it's probable I'll have to make much of it on my own again.

I will get my paints out and work on that. Can you please email me your name? I can be reached at zerorobben at gmail dot com.

>>259961
I've sent you an email.

Thank you so much for the help anon, I really appreciate it.

why are your characters a mess? some are wide, others are narrow. they're also in different fonts.

>>259975
I got the characters from google images. I literally re-sized the ones that were too big or too small to sort of fit to be the same, except for the bottom one which I intentionally made larger.

Like I said, I'm pretty shit at this kind of stuff, and I was lucky enough to have the anon help me out immensely with the designs.

>>259976
if I find them later, I'll try to type some of these as you look for a proper brush font. I recommend you look for traditional chinese, not simplified.

>>259977
Sweet, thank you for the help anon.

Maybe stop apologizing and start having some confidence first, fagit.

>>260024
Sorry.