Anybody want to weigh in with opinions on the new Hounds of Skaith cover?
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Anybody want to weigh in with opinions on the new Hounds of Skaith cover?
That lady has a really cool looking cloak.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The actual printer sample of The Swordsman of Mars hit my desk about an hour ago, and I REALLY like the color painting a lot. You can definitely see the J. Allen St. John influence, which is a nice reward for the pile of reference art I sent to the artist.
Darren Bader did an excellent job. I am very excited about the way the covers are shaping up for this book line!
Yes, I have to agree - the cover of The Hounds of Skaith is by far my favorite so far. Excellent work!
EDIT: I realize that such vague praise is not really helpful. So, let me attempt to explain why I like the cover of The Hounds of Skaith so much. James Ryman is an awesome fantasy artist, to begin with. I've liked all of his work in Dungeon and Dragon over the years, so choosing him to do a cover was simply a good decision.
More importantly, I love the sense of action in the picture. The hero and the lady are in semi-crouched positions, as if they are ready to pounce into action. This is similar to the cover of Almuric, another one of my favorites, in which the hero looks ready to bash some skulls in with his sword. Compare this cover, then, to that of Northwest of Earth (easily my least favorite favor of the whole Planet Stories line), in which the hero and the lady are simply standing in the corner, upright and without the hint of sudden action. This is so much more exciting!
Secondly, the monsters (which pulp fantasy is never without!) are in clear focus on the cover of The Hounds of Skaith. They are also in action poses, with knives raised and ready to split open Stark. Once again, compare this to Northwest of Earth (and to a lesser extent, the cover of The Ginger Star) where the antagonists in the scene are in the foreground and difficult to see. It's not clear at all what exactly is menacing Northwest and the lady. In Hounds of Skaith, on the other hand, it's very clear that a pack of emaciated, ghoul-like creatures are just asking to get their heads split open by Stark!
Finally, I think a brighter color scheme does more justice to the upbeat-tempo of many pulp fantasy stories and, in general, are just more attractive to the eye than the subdued colors of books like Northwest of Earth.
Hope this feedback helps!
Since I haven't read any of the planet stories so far I thought I would give some unbiased oppinions on some favourite covers. Let me check my library...
All three covers for Joe Abercrombies the First Law series are awesome.
The covers for the Fighters series released by WotC left me breathless the first time I saw them. Raymond Swanland is a god to me now.
R. Scott Bakker has some thought-provoking covers for his Prince of Nothing trilogy.
And Max Barrys Jennifer Government looks realy cool.
The above mentioned books are all books I've bought simply for their covers and then it turned out the books were awesome as well (allthough perhaps not the Fighters that was only passable).
EDIT: Looking through the planet stories books I like Black God's Kiss the best. It's all dark and claustrophobic. I like that.