The One Chosen (WiP; 366,000 words; no new update)

[ParrotWatcher]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

@DarthMaul

Or have the other chosen one’s face and the main villain’s face shown? I think that’s a good compromise.

I don’t really want to emphasise Artie, especially at the expense of the actual MC…

@idonotlikeusernames

Otherwise how about a shot of London with ordinary London on the foreground and the academy in the sky?

I like that one…

@idonotlikeusernames

I’d definitely not like a canon appearance for the mc particularly if that is the opposite of what I chose e.g short and female.
Skin colour is a bit less of a problem although my own mc is mixed race white/English and Indian/Pakistani in my mind so his skin would be on the lighter side of brown/dusky.

Don’t worry; if I was going to “canonise” an MC, I’d probably make them more androgynous, and with somewhat darker skin… But again, I would like to avoid that.

@Albus_de_Noir

Then maybe you could go with a background character style. I can only take example from anime but depending of the drawing style, you have characters with no eyes, no face, very simplistic doodle like face, or the character whole body being paint in a gray/black colourless monochrome. If you keep the gender ambiguous enough it could work ?

One problem with this is that the background character style is designed to draw attention away from the character, and that’s not what I’m going for.

@Mechanical_Rose

What about a cover where the MC is facing away from the viewer, in a hoodie and a backpack, something to indicate that they are an unprepared, ordinary child instead of the intimidating armor/glowing robes the hero usually wears.

Ironically, that’s actually pretty similar to my main idea, except I was imagining it from the front…

@Atomicurtchen

You could do something like you did with totem force where all the background characters take center stage

I don’t really think that would work as well; Totem Force was very much a Power Rangers homage, and thus having the team pose in front of an explosion was an obvious extension of that. I don’t think a team pose would work quite as well in this case.

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Thinking about it (and combining various ideas), what about this?

The background is similar to @idonotlikeusernames and @AdmiralLynx89’s suggestions, the normal city, but with various magical additions, most notably the flying castle. Meanwhile, in the foreground, we see the MC, facing away, and wearing a hoodie to obscure the face, as suggested by @Mechanical_Rose and @Atomicurtchen…

So, something like this (note: this is not the actual image, it’s just a few royalty-free photos I stuck together to get the right sort of effect ):

[idonotlikeusernames]

@ParrotWatcher

So, something like this (note: this is not the actual image, it’s just a few royalty-free photos I stuck together to get the right sort of effect ):

Now add something to remind me that this is London, like Parliament…or what about that huge Ferris wheel? Something that screams Britain/London, as it is that street could be in Frankfurt or the new business district in Rotterdam too.

On the other hand to make it feel more realistic with what is actually in game maybe have the ordinary street be a dirty back alley.
Business districts and wealthier streets tend to be well enough policed and observed to make them an unnecessary risk to the mc as a runaway kid. Especially seeing as how Britain is the CCTV capital of Europe.

Oh, and of course I was hoping for a cute male elf…maybe watching the mc from the shadows.

[ParrotWatcher]

@idonotlikeusernames

Now add something to remind me that this is London, like Parliament…or what about that huge Ferris wheel? Something that screams Britain/London, as it is that street could be in Frankfurt or the new business district in Rotterdam too.

I think it was actually a German street; none of the British street photos I could find looked quite right…

But yeah, having some more memorable London buildings in the background would make sense.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@ParrotWatcher

But yeah, having some more memorable London buildings in the background would make sense.

Maybe a lesser known…at least to us foreigners, but still iconic London landmark would fit the bill?

[Eiwynn]

@ParrotWatcher

what about this?

Awesome. Just make the backpack pink with a silver unicorn on it!

No?

@idonotlikeusernames

Maybe a lesser known…at least to us foreigners, but still iconic London landmark would fit the bill?

The big Ferris wheel would fit.

[AdmiralLynx89]

What about the “Gerkin”? I don’t think there’s another place like it put there in the world.

The “eye” will do, though, because it is certainly distinctive enough.

[ParrotWatcher]

@Eiwynn

Awesome. Just make the backpack pink with a silver unicorn on it!

Maybe not. It would draw too much attention to itself, when it’s not supposed to be the focus of the picture, but simply an added detail. And making the MC more colourful would take away from the intentional blandness of their design.

Obviously, it would be fine in other cases.

@Eiwynn

The big Ferris wheel would fit.

Unfortunately, no. It’s too close to the river, and rivers symbolise freedom, especially combined with the lack of any restraining tall buildings around it, which is not what I’m going for. And I refuse to change geography for the sake of art. Plus, as a Ferris wheel, it’s a symbol of fun, which, again, is not really what I’m going for. The whimsy should all come from the magical floating castle, not from the “real world” stuff.

(Similarly, I don’t want anything too old, as this would fail to highlight the contrast; even the Victorian Westminster Palace and Tower Bridge are too old, and places like St Paul’s and the Tower are way out, especially since the Tower is actually several centuries older than Auverine… )

Am I thinking about this too hard?

@AdmiralLynx89

What about the “Gerkin”? I don’t think there’s another place like it put there in the world.

Ooh, that works. It’s in the middle of the City, so surrounded by other tall buildings, and it’s an office block, so it’s very representative of the “real” world.

[Gloomcat]

What about normal London and adding glowing outlines to the magical parts? Like you see some ‘‘normal humans’’ with glowing tails or horns or wings, etc.

Example

[Eiwynn]

It looks like my feedback accomplished its purpose… by helping define everything not wanted.

You always make good decisions @ParrotWatcher – I totally believe in you, and your decisions.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@ParrotWatcher

The whimsy should all come from the magical floating castle, not from the “real world” stuff.

Hmmm…if you need bleak but still quintessentially British go with a suburb of dilapidated row houses…but use the ones with mock Tudor fronts…as while we in the Benelux and the Germans have row houses too that particular “style” abomination has only ever caught on in Britain to my knowledge. Maybe depict the some of the ominous skyscrapers of the London city in the background. While many of those may not be immediately as recognisable as the other landmarks the London city skyscrapers would fit the bill for being both unique and generic, as while every modern business district has tall skyscrapers each of the skyscrapers still tends to be somewhat unique in its blandness and ubiquity as one of the shibboleths of our neoliberal age.

@ParrotWatcher

It’s in the middle of the City, so surrounded by other tall buildings, and it’s an office block, so it’s very representative of the “real” world.

My only concern is that business districts can be hazardous to the homeless as modern business architecture is very homeless unfriendly to the point of putting spikes under bridges and pumping out annoying music, but to a kid like the mc the greatest danger would be the police and cctv as unlike the adult homeless the mc getting arrested won’t mean they spend an average of two nights in jail before being put on the street again with a fine they cannot hope to pay.
For a kid it means going back into the system and the system is exactly what the mc was escaping from.

[ParrotWatcher]

How about this?

@idonotlikeusernames

Hmmm…if you need bleak but still quintessentially British go with a suburb of dilapidated row houses…

Suburbia doesn’t really have the same feel to it.

@idonotlikeusernames

My only concern is that business districts can be hazardous to the homeless as modern business architecture is very homeless unfriendly to the point of putting spikes under bridges and pumping out annoying music

Yeah, but this is just a representative piece of art, it doesn’t need to be completely accurate…

[Gloomcat]

@ParrotWatcher

How about this?

Maybe more people on it? And if you really want to take the trouble, you could make normal London gray and leave the academy and MC in color.

[ParrotWatcher]

Okay, so how does this look?

[Gloomcat]

Nice

[vitor_Mao_de_Vaca]

nice as heck

[idonotlikeusernames]

@ParrotWatcher

Okay, so how does this look?

Creepy as heck…that ominous cloud with that shining “mouth” of the floating castle.

I think maybe you need to put more colour into the magical part…maybe some magical greenery…that (almost) always softens things up and would help to put at least a crapsaccharine veneer on the magical part…as opposed to the totally colorless and oppressive mundane world.
Right now they are still too similar, imho. Except for the castle floating and being medieval architecture…but that is a difference in era of architecture, rather than the overall feeling.

Also no cute elves.

[ParrotWatcher]

@idonotlikeusernames

I think maybe you need to put more colour into the magical part…

Yeah; I just wasn’t sure what colour would look reasonable…

[vitor_Mao_de_Vaca]

hmmm…it is magicy stuff, so purple maybe?

[DarthMaul]

you could probably have a bunch of colours for the magical stuff, like a rainbow.

[Den]

I think its perfect already tho.
Too much colors might looks like superhero story.