Patchers of the Code

The author says:

Yes. This is happening again. Rejoice! The third book of my Elfrotica series is now covered, with this cover. The name was changed from Redeemers, as that didn’t fit so well. So I present to you Patchers, now with centaurs! (As a bonus I remembered to put highlights and the background solid colour thingies in this one before submitting this! A new record) The angel was going to have a giant sword, but there is no room for it. He has a flower instead. I was thinking of maybe using a dagger, as flowers are not that intimidating but are in the book. He doesn’t actually have a dagger in the book, but it would look more ‘dangerous’.

Nathan says:

I will, of course, go to hell for what I’m about to say:

Phallus harder!

I think that each successive cover needs to be even more suggestive, juuuust inside the bounds of plausible deniability.  I went into this saying, “Surely there’s gotta be some suggestion of phallic imagery in the spear…” Nope.  And you’ve got a centaur, without ever playing with the visual idea of “hung like a horse?” For shame!

(Also,”Patchers” isn’t very readable in that font.)

Anyone else? Also, don’t tell my mom.

Comments

  1. People who might buy this book migh also be attracted to the garish cover, but I agree the title is VERY hard to read in that font, which seems to be in kaps and smalll kaps. Doesn’t this font have a lower case? Anyway, I would change the font to something readable. The action of the two figures is quite nice; I like it.

    1. Hello George.

      I was tweaking it and it looks like my outer glow got doubled when I was changing the colour of the font, which is making everything a little more blurry than it should be.

      I wanted to have red and purple in this cover (to keep the entire rainbow represented over all the books), but it is a bit hard on the eyes. (Red font is hard to read on black, who knew). Less salmon will help here I think.

      Unfortunately, that is the font on all the books. Word of advice – type out all of the titles of your books when you are picking a font to make sure you don’t have my problem.

      Luckily, this is book 3 in a series, so anyone who is looking for it will already have the others. So they will see the purple book in the 3 book series and know it is book three. (probably)

  2. Man, the first cover in the series was absolutely great, but each successive one has been…just not as good.

    In the first one, all the vector linework was extremely precise. In the second one, the figure outlines were extremely precise but the webs and highlights were sloppy. (I pointed this out, assuming you’d fix it in the final version, but there it is on Amazon with those sloppy highlights.) And in this version, everything is sloppy.

    I don’t want to rag on you by pointing out each individual thing that’s sloppy, but just look back at Breakers of the Code, at how smooth and precise and detailed every single line is, and then look back at this one, at the jaggy lines and the obvious brush shapes and the places where the highlights run over the edges. Those crystals at the bottom, for example, need to be extremely smooth and sharp, but they’re all lumpy. The horse legs need a lot of work, too.

    Compositionally, just like I saw “dude hanging out of a tree” instead of “drider,” I saw “knight with a tree or something hanging over him” instead of “angel.” The wings hit 3 edges of the page, so they don’t have an identifiable outline.

    And Nathan is right: Nothing here suggests “sexy.” Could you do something with the crystals? The placement of the horse’s leg? There isn’t even any elf butt!

  3. This is a bit beyond me, but if you flesh-toned the human parts of the centaur and the armored elf, including the entirety of the elf’s legs and butt to indicate that they wear no pants, it may up the eroticism in a useful way. I think this could readily be done while still maintaining the silhouetted nature of the cover.
    I’ve also an odd suggestion for the font. In the existing text “of the Code” is significantly easier to read than “Patchers”. The “TCH” sequence seems to be the least readable part. If you are fond of the font and the title isn’t set in stone yet you might consider “Menders” or another synonym that circumstantially yields a more readable phrase.

    1. This falls into my problem of this being the third book in a series. All the others are strictly black silhouettes.

      However, this did give me the idea of changing the highlight colour on the armor vs the colour on the skin to give it variation! That would help with this I think.

      The name isn’t set in stone – especially as it already changed once. I will need to check and see if the ‘M’ in this font is an abomination against legibility or not. (So many bad letters in this font, such lessons learned)

      1. You can always play with specific letters of a font and manipulate them slightly. I’ve done that lots of times to help with legibility when I really needed to use a specific font. It also gives it a bit of a customized look.

    2. unfortunately, in IT lingo code is always patched, not darned or mended or repaired – font change would be preferable.

  4. (Psst) Nathan – the spear is a dick encased in a vagina.

    Hung like a horse is what humans say. My centaur is hung like a giraffe, which is the animal horses use to brag with. That thought does give me an idea about crystal placement however… *rubs elfy mitts together*

    1. CB:

      (psssst): really, that looks more like a dick encased in a womb (uterus), than a vajayjay. (Youch!). I wouldn’t lead you astray, but, er…how shall I put this? Perhaps, sweetie, as you are batting for the other team, your visual knowledge on this is not so great? I mean the vajayjay part, of course.

      I don’t “get” the phallus from the spear, at ALL. And, like all the rest of us, I was looking for it.

      And, DRAT! You already thought of my one idea…move that crystal, the one that is pointing at the angel, closer (ahem) to the Centaur, and er, make it a skosh thinner…and bob’s yer uncle. Instant lewd suggestiveness! Oh,la la!

      I, too, cannot discern an angel. I do, of course, get it, now that you tell me (tell us) that that’s what it is, but I wonder how many of us would have recognized that, had you not explained him? Just saying, CB.

        1. 42! 🙂

          More noticeable, er, phallus. If you need Vajayjay, Georgia O’Keefe can be your guide, LOL. Given that you always have the PLANTS around…I wouldn’t tease orchid ya.

  5. Two other notes:

    -The detailing needs to be either transparent or opaque. Right now it’s opaque on the figures but transparent on the wings.

    -Where’s the angel’s left arm?

    1. It wouldn’t be one of my covers on Cover Critics if I didn’t forget to do something with the transparent line bits. Nice catch.

      … uh… the arm is… um… seven?

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