Welcome to October's Cover Makeover!

Last month we asked you to nominate your FanFiction stories in need of a cover makeover.

Our chosen entry was from MadameTango, for her story Emerald. Here's what she had to say about her story:

I'm about to start writing the story again and relaunch it. I love the cover it has but I think it needs something new. Emerald is the fanfiction you have when you don't have a fan fiction—it blends the worlds of both Marvel and Norse Mythology, and also takes its own path into fantasy. I need a cover that reflects that.

The blurb for Emerald reads:

Caitlin Errikkson is a normal 20 something Australian actress. Her family comes from western NSW and are pretty crazy, but that's normal right? Mmm maybe not! Her Dad Tony is hiding a secret, and it's one that will affect Caitlin in so many ways. And of course it's a secret that chooses the worst possible time to reveal itself: Cait's first trip Australian Television's night of nights—The Logies. You see she's about to meet the ultimate in tall, dark and handsome, and to make it even more interesting he's from out of town. Way out of town??

The planet of Asgard............

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The Briefing

Emerald is a FanFiction partly set in the Marvel universe and the main character is a (fictional) actress.

No real world celebrities feature in the story, although Madame Tango intentionally cast Tom Hiddleston as 'Loki' in the story. In line with this, I felt it was more than okay to represent the story without utilising his likeness as is done in her original cover. (A FanFic about Tom himself would be a different matter, however.) My main reason for this is licensing and legal issues; I work really hard to stick with legitimate stock I have either purchased or have explicit permission to use. You're unlikely to get sued for sticking a celebrity on your cover here on Wattpad, but outside of these tangerine pages it's just really, really not worth taking the risk.

Another reason I ventured away from using Tom Hiddleston on the cover (even if I purchased the rights to use his image/likeness), is that the story itself is about Loki—a fictional character—not the actor himself. While using a celebrity in one of their iconic roles for your FanFic cover can be great way to connect with your reader, you run the risk of mis-branding your story. For example, in this instance a Marvel Universe FanFic vs. a Tom Hiddleston FanFic.

Remember that you want your cover to instantly tell your reader what kind of story is inside, so be clear and concise with your image choices.

Aside from the use of Tom, there are a couple of other features on the original cover that jumped to my attention:

• The imagery of the lights, cameras and red carpet give the impression that this is a story about fame, rather than a modern/magical realism Fantasy story focused on Norse Mythology

• The colour scheme, while vibrant and eye-catching, has missed the opportunity to capitalise on the title (i.e. by using lots of green). This is one way to make your cover really, really memorable. Think, for example, T-Swizzle's 'Red' album

• The main character is missing, further suggesting that this is a FanFic about Tom, rather than a Marvel Universe FanFic feat. Loki and starring an entirely new character (Caitlyn)

Some things that the original cover has in its favour:

• Like I mentioned above, it has bright, vibrant colours that are really eye-catching

• The designer has done a solid job blending the images into a cohesive scene

• I like the Art Deco font choices—very evocative of Old Hollywood glamour, while also hinting at the SciFi/Fantasy elements of the story

Overall I would say that the original cover is actually fairly decent, it just doesn't quite hit the mark in terms of representing the story within.

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The Makeover

My main goals with this makeover were to really bring out the SciFi/Fantasy aspects of the story (and move away from the Celeb. FanFic vibe), bring the focus towards the female main character as the protagonist, and capitalise on 'Emerald' as a colour scheme.

I started with the protagonist, Caitlin. I had a picture in my mind of a woman on a red carpet with flashing bulbs (the story starts with her attending her first awards ceremony), and I knew that would leave me a lot of negative space to work with for the other elements. In some of that negative space I added some flashes of light/sparkles (technically called 'bokeh'—the more you know, etc.) in the bottom left hand corner to represent both the flash of cameras on the red carpet and the 'twinkle' of Fantasy / magic.

Next was bringing in the green. I downloaded a picture of raw emerald and played with the saturation and shadows. This gave an excellent colour (obvs), and also an awesome crystalline texture that reminds me a lot of the Rainbow Bridge in the movies.

Because the FanFic aspect is Marvel's representation of Loki, I looked at how to represent him without encroaching on copyrighted designs and intellectual property. To start with, I searched for graphics featuring the character. The key points I noticed were lots of green (hooray!), a lot of black and lots of fog/smoke. Some other icons I found in the images were the Rainbow Bridge and lightning (associated with Thor/Mjölnir). There was also, of course, Loki's spear and horned helmet. I had to rule out using those, however, as their designs are copyrighted by... Disney? (Who makes those movies??). Instead I looked into some of the more traditional symbols associated with Loki and the other Norse gods. Runes were one option, but what really spoke to me was a motif of two snakes intertwined into twisted 'S'.

I struggled to find a version of this image that I could license, so I settled on a similar image of snakes twisted together and decided to zoom and crop so that the end result was reminiscent of the emblem I originally wanted to use.

I also found a cool image of lightning fractals that I layered in behind the snake. Layering isn't something I've talked about much before, but for covers like this one, it's not uncommon for me to use upwards of twenty layers (in this case, twenty-nine) of images, shadows, light, colours, all blended together.

Font choice was easy. I wanted to keep the Art Deco feel, and had this particular type in mind as the double 'bars' on the characters make them feel rather rune-ish as well as keeping the 'Old Hollywood' tone. I then chose a handwritten/brush script to contrast against the rigidity title, and voila!

That's about all I can think to tell you about how this cover was made... As always, feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

But for now, here's the end result of the cover makeover for Emerald by MadameTango:

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Lucy will be taking a short break, but she will be back in 2017 to give away more Wattpad Cover Makeovers!

In the meantime, stay tuned to upcoming Wattmag issues for lots of other EXCITING GIVEAWAYS!!

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If you want to learn more about designing your own book covers, then you might be interested in checking out Lucy's Wattpad book, "How to: The Basics of Book Cover Design".

In this book, Lucy talks a lot about... the basics of book cover design (surprise!). She also provides info on where to find free, fully licensed stock images, fonts, and other design resources, as well as recommendations on the best places to spend money, and how not to spend too much (she's queen of the tight budget!).

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