Amethyst Shards Cover Reveal
This has been a long time coming but it’s finally here! The cover for Amethyst Shards. If you look closely, parts of it may seem familiar. That’s because it’s actually a blend of the other book covers. I wasn’t originally going to do this, but the idea came to me and it clicked. I originally had two other directions for Amethyst Shards’:
- Another fractal, like Emerald Haze. I even had fractal candidates set aside for this route.
- Physical art like How to Stop Wildfire. I had basic ideas of how to do this but I never got around to actually planning it.
But then the mood hit me yesterday and I had a new idea: a collage of the previous book covers. Amethyst Shards is the culmination of all of them so it made sense to me. I picked out some pieces of the other cover art, started messing around, and then I learned of GIMP’s Depth Merge feature. I played with it then I knew what I wanted to do:
Depth Merge all the covers of books 1-4 and EH together. Then color tweaking it to be purply to match the Amethyst aspect.
I didn’t end up using any of the Primordial Essences Saga because they had distinct art pieces rather than being…textural. Also I felt like the themes of the last two books said: the Primordial Essences are done, so they didn’t feel right to show up in the cover for Amethyst Shards.
So I just stuck with the first four and the ninth book and all together that’s how the background art was made:
I really like it. So much so that soon after making it I went to EH’s E-Cover template, copied it, plugged in AS’s title and art, made some small tweaks, and…here we are!
It just works. The font clicks, it feels consistent with Emerald Haze’s cover, and symbolizes the final book. It just feels so natural. You can see the flames of HTSW’s cover, bits of EH and TTBTT’s fractals, and texture from HW and OFE’s cover. It just feels right for the last book to be a literal culmination of all that came before. When things work, they work, and they lock in fast.
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