Author: Danielle

Creativity and Time Management Considerations

Thoughts on Entertainment

(Reposting from my Mastodon account, because I think peeps will find it useful)

Upon reading about the way loot boxes mimic gambling I stumbled upon gamequitters.com/
Since them, I’ve been musing about how much compy/tablet time I’m using when I could be producing or practicing something lasting.

My argument for playing single-player games is that everything I take in is grist for the mill (inspiration for art or writing). I feel like if I stop, I could overfish my creative well. But I also don’t want to waste my time as a watcher and not a doer. And sometimes social media and seeing everyone’s art saps energy.
The most MP game I play is Armello, but I think I’ll delete it [EDIT: since this post, I did that and deleted a few card games that I was spending too much time on].

I think Game Quitters is very savvy though–that factors that make people turn to gaming (or other not-so-productive behaviors) are:

  • sociality
  • challenge
  • a steady sense of progress
  • (and my husband added) validation.
  • And I’d add fear.

I could use more of IRL sociality. I feel like writing and art give me plenty of challenge and a sense of progress but other psychological things make me feel like I’M NEVER GOOD ENOUGH so there’s that, too.

(From a comment over at CoverCritics.com)

“I think this cover would not pass my test of imagining it with a title in an unfamiliar language. If you were to do that, would you still be able to tell anything at all about the nature, themes or even genre of the book?”

That’s a great idea. If everything about your book cover was the same (pics, typefaces) but the words were foreign/lorem ipsum, what assumptions would your viewer make?

Cool book cover design tip!

Indie Publishing Friends, Writing

Book Cover Makeover! Before and Afters, yay!

Art, Indie Publishing Friends

A friend of mine wrote a postmodern hypertext (like, CYOA) eBook called LOVE OCTOPUS TRANSFORMATION. My sketch has been on its cover for years now, but since I’ve learned more about eyecatching book cover design, I wanted to update it and make it purdy for her.

Here’s the before:

Sketchy octopus on black background.The test of a good eBook cover: does it catch audience interest? Does it signal the genre?

My old errors: I stretched the text, and you can’t figure out what the illio is in the thumbnail. Genre, what’s that?

Here comes the AFTER!

LOVE OCTOPUS TRANSFORMATION cover 2018. A woman's green face beneath pink tentacles, with the title in bold text.

LOVE OCTOPUS TRANSFORMATION cover 2018. A woman's green face beneath pink tentacles, with the title in bold text.

A mashup of CC-0 photos, a little Krita magic, and surprisingly little futzing in Inkscape for the text!
This one might be a little fantastical for the subject matter, but I think it’s striking! If I could do it again, I might move the author name to the top…but at least the typeface matches her other books! #branding

Do you love BEFORE AND AFTER style book cover makeovers? Comment below with some of your favorites!

 

Sketch – Dragon queen and her hoard

Art

A dragon sitting in her hoard room. A monkey climbs on her and her vampire son looks onQueen Lumina in her hoard. Freehanded background, originally meant to practice her groomer monkey (who is too big). I drew the characters first, BAD ME. Also I LOVE HER STUPID HEAD it’s just a quick gesture from a taxidermy pic I had on my caveman phone.
Hope to paint this one later.