Going from the sketch from yesterday, I went on a quest to find stock imagery. The proper, and only, way to do this is to pay for it. My sources of choice are iStockPhoto and Shutterstock.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find an image of a girl holding a gun behind her back in a way I liked. That’s one of the limitations of stock photography. I would have to digitally graft one photo onto another. Of course, I could also hire a model and a photographer to capture the image I wanted, but that was beyond my budget.
Both sites allow you to download “comps”, low resolution watermarked images you can develop ideas with. If the ideas work, then you buy the images and make a final image with them.
I prototyped the cover in Adobe Illustrator and attached is the result. I’m not keen on the fonts, but the general layout works and captures the spirit of my sketch.
The next step is completed in Photoshop. Continue reading here.
