Cover design for dummies

I've been so excited about my latest book project, I completely forgot about the old one for a while! When I went back to look at my progress on the paperback for Discovery's 21 Days of Hellfire, I realized the covers I'd been playing with just weren't going to work.

First I threw together a rough sketch that I was hoping would make a nice wraparound design, but the style I was using wasn't working. Then I mocked up a geometric cover inspired by a thing I found on Pinterest, but it didn't match the tone of the story at all. I also wanted it to be more obvious what franchise this story was about. So I'm back in Procreate!

For the original illustration, I was lowkey obsessed with the linework and style of Aida Iro. I really wanted to emulate their use of contrasting colors in my cover, but I don't quite have the color theory skills to make it happen yet. Can't beat myself up about it, either; there are so many YouTube videos of new and veteran artists studying their distinctive style. I'm just a girl.

Since that first pass I've been experimenting a lot with my various video and graphics projects for clients' work, which helped me to get out of my own head and be less precious about what I put out and how I get it done. It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to exist. Thanks to Tiny Experiments, I think that's finally clicking for me.

The new rough illustration has much clearer symbolism. Masks are an iconic piece of the franchise, but you won't know what the candle's about until you're essentially at the climax of the story. I had to take a few days' break, there. I'm hoping it's super obvious to Persona 5 fans that this is a fanfic, without being too alienating to non-fans.

Honestly, aside from a single chapters involving battling, I don't think you need to have played P5 or P5R to understand most of the fic. That's a testament to the author, in my opinion. If any complete newbies end up reading some of it, I'd love to know if that's true!