what do you think of the new realm breaker cover?
Boring. Sword boring, gold boring, blood boring, tagline boring. Hopelessly Western Europeanâąïž without so much as a hint of irony, with ugly mid-2000s style title and jarringly Contemporary Sci-fi Thriller author name. They couldnât even bother to find a model with hands than look like theyâve done any work ever, and the gems on that sword hilt literally look tacked on because they probably are. No one fucking puts raised gems on the grip if the sword is even pretending to be functional.
Now letâs talk about technical stuff. The text, as I mentioned, is annoyingly disjointed. The drop shadow behind the title is heavy-handed and just highlights how outdated the font feels. And why are we using this font anyway when there are better ones that donât feel like they were pulled off the cover of a Tamora Pierce reprint?
The authorâs name is also way too large and Almost Touching the pommel of the sword which is bad composition it makes it feel like things are being squished in, even though there is PLENTY of empty space on this cover. Honestly I feel like the title should have been positioned over the hilt and the gems removed or placed on the pommel and/or crossguard instead.
That puts the focus on the BLADE and the hand ON THE BLADE, which should not be bleeding from the center where there is NO CUTTING EDGE. If there is any blod at all it should originate from where the edges meet her fingers and the web of her thumb, and it should drip down the EDGES.
And the singular hand sticking out from the side is.... bad. Disembodied hands are really hard to incorporate, and they dropped the ball here. Once again, I harp on the merits of illustration and alternative artwork, because photoshopped covers always have that element of awkwardness.
The Once & Future cover looks awkward as hell because you can tell they had no idea wtf to do with the hands and the placement prevents them from actually Gripping The Hilt.
The hands on my redesign of The Winnerâs Crime looks intentional because theyâre illustrated. The positioning of the fingers and the turns of the wrist become stylizations rather than stiffly posed contortions of a Real Person.
The gold is...blah. It doesnât really bring to mind a grand realm on the cusp of dramatic change. Itâs just...Baroque French? Which I guess very very technically was a Grand Realm on the cusp of bloody revolution, but not for like, another 100 years. But itâs certainly not the High Fantasy Pseudo-medieval Europe that Iâm sure this book is about. I doubt any of the ladies will be dressed in paniers or powdered hair or mules or five metric tons of silk roses a la Madame Pompadour. I bet theyâll have beach waves.
6/10 it forgot what itâs trying to be somewhere between the Arthurian typeface and the poorly shopped blood.
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