Art Palladin Cover Art

[Dragon Warrior]

To accomodate my new idea for a story, I thought I'd whip up a quick cover art for the book. I admit it's not my best work, but I found it hard to actually accomplish this task (why, I dunno). The story is called "Palladin of the Wicked West" and is about an outlaw named Palladin. Its setting is in an alternate dimension of our 1910-or-so American Westerns in a world called The Wicked West. In it, there may be voodoo, witch doctors, cowboys with swords, and even creatures. It opens to a new world for the old John Wayne cowboy.

[center][img]http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5476/palladin1jg.jpg[/img][/center]

Upon looking at the picture, you can see the shot of Palladin's face, then at the bottom, his horse, the girl in the story most likely, and a villain. Palladin's face was actually the most difficult part because I had to find just the right images to use. Just his face alone consisted of several pictures scattered around google:

[list][*]A man's face that's rugged.
[*]A cowboy hat pointing in the same direction at just the right angle.
[*]A trenchcoat (the man's body I removed and replaced with a custom chest and trenchcoat, but the chest is blocked more or less by his gun and sword).
[*]A sword.
[*]A gun.
[*]Gloves.[/list]

I edited Palladin's face by shadowing it near the hat. I wanted the effect that you don't see his eyes too well giving him more of a mysterious look since he is Palladin the Outlaw. That was a really simple part to do, obviously. Just using Lighting Effects. The sword was giving me trouble because the image was originally rather small. I enlarged it and of course it got all pixelated, so I edited that a bit. But it still looked crappy. Then I put in a lens flare on it and it was like magic--it worked! I also made the blade a little curvy in some parts as you can barely see because I assume Palladin's place gets used quite often (and he may not have access to a sharpening stone ;) ).

The gun was originally a really light silver. Nothing some brightness tuning and and lighting effects couldn't fix. And voila! It's a dark, black gun. I was cheap with the goldish borders around the circles and squares, as you can see. I used very basic techniques to get those. I didn't really care. Same goes for the brown background. The text was done with simple techniques as well, but for this project, it worked very well.

The horse wasn't edited at all aside from slightly making it darker (and of course, removing some of its body to fit in that tiny circle :D). The girl was darkened as well and had an opacity revision as did the villain on the right. I copied some of the villain's hat and used it as a piece of cloth around her mouth. It just seemed to work :P As for the sunset... I blurred it some--big whoop, right?

And I think that covers it. Like I said, I don't like it too much, but it got the idea across, methinks. Cowboys with guns and swords? Yeeeehaw!

[Roxie Faye]

[color=#9933ff]We just went over this, but I still like your character, because his name, to me, seems like it's derived from the word "paladin" which I have an obsession with.

When I first saw the image, it look fantastic. And after I read your post, it still looked fantastic. I can tell you put a lot of hard work into it, and it looks great. I think the sword is a little [i]too[/i] rough edged, but who cares? The whole thing is really great. And I know I'm supposed to be telling you what's wrong so you can fix it, but I can't find anything, really.

I can't wait to read this story of yours, either. Let me know when it's up! (or the first part is up, if you're going to chapter it or whatever.) I like this guy already! (Just because his name is "Palladin." ^_~)[/color]

[Ezekiel]

[SIZE=1]You know, I think you pulled this off so well that it looks like a basic poster image. When I first saw it I was wondering what exactly you'd done to it except add text and a border, but once I looked again I could see just how much work had gone into this. Well done!

My favourite part has to be the horse; I just love the way it's sticking out of its little circle thing. The way you added the Palladin's hat, weapons and, well...face, is truly masterful.

Great stuff all round once again. ^_^[/SIZE]

[Dragon Warrior]

I actually do like Palladin's look. He turned out to be the better part of the image. The rest I felt like I couldn't get it right. As Hack told me privately, the horse does seem out of place from off to the side. He might've been better off in the middle where the girl is. And I also noticed that Palladin's gloves holding the gun and sword are covered, so what was the point of taking time to put them in? XD Oh well.

[img]http://img131.exs.cx/img131/8930/dwwashere9rz.gif[/img]
[size=1]^ Haven't done [i]that[/i] in a good while.[/size]