BARBAROUS Chapter 6 cover: process & design!

HELLO!!! The BARBAROUS CH.6 Collection Kickstarter ends in THREE DAYS!!! AAA 🔥

In celebration, I wanted to do a writeup on a the cover design process and share it with everyone! (Note: jsyk, this isn't the final book design! I'm sharing a cover without finalized trade dress, back text etc..)

We decided early on we wanted to try to do something slightly different with the trade dress, since Ch.6 marks the beginning of a new season and a new story arc. So now the BARBAROUS logo is sitting vertical up the left side and isn't stacked in that more-designerly-but-also-more-difficult-to-read way.

BARBAROUS Chapter 3 cover. The logo is stacked over the cover art and semi-transparent.

BARBAROUS chapter 6 cover. The logo is vertical up the left side of the book, and more opaque.

The cover concept was 'Leeds tying the magic string on Percy' - which is the big plot beat that happens in the middle of this chapter. Ananth and I each had our own ideas on how to do this — I wanted to do something using Leeds as a huge frame and getting a peek of Percy. Ananth wanted something Percy-centric where she's completely framed by Leeds. We went with Ananth's thumbnail since it was more playful and kinetic, and mine was a bit more emotionally somber. I think I'd still like to use this for something in the future, though!

Originally we wanted Fortuna on the back cover, since she's introduced in this chapter (and I love drawing her.) Unfortunately, this idea was scrapped because she has SO much detail in her that it would make cover text really difficult to place and any areas of overlap difficult to read. We simplified the concept and ultimately did a pushed-back string figure that wraps around to the front of the cover. This would leave lots of space and legibility for any text on the back.

About 75% of the way through the process we were looking at the cover and going "this needs more movement. What is the cheapest way to get more movement into this cover since it's already mostly done" and the answer was "rotate everything by ~30 degrees" AND IT WORKED REALLY WELL?? Sometimes the answer really is dutch angles. Thank you film school for FINALLY doing something to help me.

Those are all of my deep thoughts about this chapter cover, but please feel to ask questions!! Thank you again to everyone who's supported this Kickstarter! If we get to the next goal, I'll be bullied into drawing another sticker sheet (these are very fun for me I like drawing our characters cute and blobby), so if you desire please assist in making this happen.