Some Small Dive - The Cover

 

Above is a quick sketch of my first idea for a cover. I "pictured" it vaguely painted in a very loose, moody, and impressionist style, like some old painting of a jazz pianist. The painting would have wrapped around to the  back cover of the paperback book, with the front cover on the right. However, in sketching it to size, I found it difficult to fit the piano player on the front cover without making him, and all the other figures, very small.

Eventually, I turned the  mind's "camera" 90 degrees, and adopted a sort of Von Gogh style of painting - lots of sketchy color and some black lines. I'd seen pictures of painting he'd done in rooms and I believe a bar. The result is below.

It had the elements I was looking for, and I went with it for a while, though for the cover, it was cropped to eliminated the ceiling. I did feel that the black outlines were too thick. I could thin them out on the painting, or on the computer. Since, as you can see, I left way too much space on top for the title box, the painting did not work as a piece of art. It was out of balance. Given that, I decided to narrow the black lines on the digital copy, which resulted in a minor improvement for the cover. However by then, I had a growing conviction that the art did not really reflect my idea of the Bleu Moon, that some small dive. With the original as a digital copy in hand, I decided that I had nothing to lose by repainting the original piece of art, since it wasn't good art anyway.  Below is the revised version.

As you can see, I didn't really touch the figures, except for adding one in the foreground, along with two new tables. I also extended the lighted shelving higher and created a narrow strip with the paintings before reaching the ceiling. And then, after using it on the cover for a while, I decided the shelves were too high, so I did some work in Gimp to move the ceiling down again, reverting to the two shelves in the digital version. I had painted everything a little darker and more uniform, trusting the illuminated liquor shelves to keep the cover from getting too dark. In the end I really had to blow out the shelves to give the painting more "pop" since it will certainly print darker than what it looks like on this glowing screen. I shortened my usual box for the blurb on the back so it doesn't cover up the piano player. I didn't have much to say about the story anyway. I also did a fair amount in "post" adjustments with the painting. Working in Gimp I once more cleaned up and narrowed the black lines, added a missing barstool and fixing a figure, and as I mentioned, eliminated the third tier of the shelving in back. 

As of now, it's still in layers so I can still shift the painting around in the frame, and I can change the color of the title and blurb boxes, as well as change the size of the background image, but I think it's as good as it's going to get where it's at now. 

As I have mentioned in the past, I really can't "see" images in my mind. I can get a sort of muddy impression of what I would like to do, but no more. And it usually falls apart on contact with reality. That makes creating an image from the story rather difficult, as I have nothing more than an impression to go on. I think this cover, while not even close to my impression of the Bleu Moon, does, at least, suggest it, and that's about as close as I can expect to get.

Below is the ebook cover. I shifted the art a slightly upwards since I did not have to worry about covering up the piano player.