How much does cover art impact sales/downloads?

@JimD, I should just email Jason? See this is why I posted the question, to avoid making a dumb decision. Thanks!

@Samuel_H_Young, I think the difference is that you paid a pro for a day’s worth of work, i.e. 8 to 10 pics (which are pretty cool, I admit). I just don’t think an artist is going to agree to a “gig” for less than $20 total. I just need the cover art so it would be a small job.

16, Including the sequel’s art :slight_smile: good point, though.

Sam your art looks great in moviles too

@poison_mara
Thanks :slight_smile: I agree, but if you ever see it on a PC, you’ll realize they look about 10 times better when they’re bigger. There’s more detail and the colors aren’t blended together.

@Samuel_H_Young @HornHeadFan back when I started ZE, I had cover art done and then it turned out it did not scale to where Jason/CoG needed it. So I just recommend anyone new send a request to hosted-submissions at choiceofgames.com for their guidelines.

Also be aware of what rights you get from any purchased image. An icon for an app is different than an image embedded into a presentation, for example. When I did my research, a single image was going to cost closer to $100 to $200 to get the rights needed.

Thankfully I have a friend who does awesome work. :slight_smile:

Yeah, if you have an artist create an illustration for you, it’ll be either copyrighted in your name or his/hers depending on what type of deal you make. I have ownership and all the rights for my illustrations, for example.

A question what happens if you use a free image without copyright and you modify it? That’s What I did with my wip. That or just use drawing programs myself. I just couldn’t afford that and I don’t care looking. Old cogs has terrible icon and I love them anyway.

@poison_mara
If you create your own image, it’ll automatically be yours. I’m not sure about editing one, though. I know a lot of CoGs/HGs use free images from the creative commons.

I had the same problem as @JimD when I did the cover art for Sabres of Infinity. It took some base trickery in Photoshop, but I eventually managed to get everything to fit.

As for art, I generally prefer to do all of it myself. That’s what I did for Sabres of Infinity, and I’m doing the same for Mecha Ace.

@Cataphrak
I would if I could :stuck_out_tongue: you’re a really good artist.

@Cataphrak, I’m not the artist you are but I could probably draw a pretty decent cover image. I just don’t know what tools to use.

What do you use to create yours?

@HornHeadFan
I generally do a sketch in pencil, scan it, and ink/paint over it in Photoshop.

I can draw and I can photoshop pretty good and I have one of those tablets with a pen for my computer so if anybody needs help with a picture or cover art… I can help

Well Jason sent me the guidelines and there really aren’t any surprises other than you must have commercial rights and the right to modify the image; the guidelines say it must be 1) you own, 2) in public domain or 3) through Creative Commons. I think this might nix iStock as they don’t let use it for a “logo”.

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Sorry to revive such an old thread, but this seemed like a fine place to put it–I just wanted to praise Choice of Games for its incredible cover art this year. I was looking at the cropped images on the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pg/choiceofgames/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10154960298768756) for 2017, and then at the previous years’ art. While I love a lot of the past years’ art, I think 2017 is a really special year for cover art. I want a quilt of all these pictures.

So good! It would be fun some time to have an interview with one or more of the cover artists the way there are interviews with the authors.

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