I just have to share this because it's Catbug :3
MOAR COVERS!
Whilst I trolled all you Aisthesis lovelies with Nicholas Cage, I trolled all my Skyrim lovelies with pictures of catbug. I have decided to keep Catbug as my profile picture for Skyrim, but in true Skyrim fashion, I had to make this.
MOAR COVERS!
I like doing covers. It's my own way of creating something with art when I myself cannot draw/paint/etc. It also helps me think and process the plot bunnies that come into my head. While said plot bunnies are fun (and sometimes cute), they are bunnies. They are all over the place and rather elusive. You get a glimpse, and then pow! They run away. They are formless and fleeting, unless you catch one. And that's what making covers helps me do. It helps me play around with ideas, symbology, plot, and process. As I make them, I think of connections and characters, progressions and relationships: all that good stuff. Sometimes it's the cover that actually inspires me to choose something during NaNoWriMo. Sometimes if I'm in a jam, I make a cover to give myself a distraction while still keeping my thought process on the book. It works, and that's why I make so many.
But this is not about cover making. Not really. I am going to show you 6 designs, but there's actually a theme to all of this, and that theme is what I want to share with you. It's a fun little writing/thinking exercise of mine (probably has been used before, I don't know).
Ever heard the title of an anime/movie and wondered what it was about?
When someone tells you, "You should watch "insert title here"!" what is the first thing that pops into your head from that title?
It started with Free. Before I actually knew what Free! Iwatobi Swim was, I just knew it as Free. And free is a very complex and convoluted word when you think about it long enough. Free? What is free? What is freedom? What does it mean? And of course, I wondered, what is the anime about?
Well, what I came up with was waaaaaaaay off from an anime about a swim club xD I actually sat down and started writing a story called "Free", which was about socially imposed oppression, the real meaning of freedom, and why those who seek to be 'good' can never be truly free. It's a very strange story to say the least that really twists up our ideas of freedom, and I probably won't really finish it xD
If you haven't heard me say it a billion times already, here's the billion and one(th?) time: I love Attack on Titan!
As I also mentioned, I was über cynical about the show as I hate riding popularity waves. But credit goes where it is due.
At that time when I very first heard about the show, I was roleplaying demigods. But at the same time, I was lamenting how our generation has now been poisoned towards the fiction series of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. At first it was decent and all, being a satire of the Olympian gods in a modern setting, but as soon as he brought the Roman gods in and made it into something NOT satire (yet kept the Greek gods as caricatures) I started flipping tables. I then went back through the series with a fine tooth comb and realized plenty of blatant errors on the series compared to actual mythology. And it was not this particular thing that made me mad. Oh no. I totally believe that authors should be free to write as they please (well, obviously to an extent *cough* Stephanie Meyer *cough*). But the impact his books had on society produced a generation of preteens and kids who base ALL their knowledge of Greek Mythology on nothing but the PJAO series. That is an issue that I am not happy with. It's almost like our entire generation turning to the M. Night Shyamalan movie of A:TLA for ALL their information on the far superior TV show. No! Just, NO!
Where was I? Oh yah! Attack on Titan!
So while I silently stewed and wailed and gnashed my tooth at PJAO's pollution, the title "Attack on Titan" sprung up. And if y'all know your mythology, Titans were the most powerful beings in the universe (under the primordial entities of course) who were the progenitors of the Greek Gods and Goddesses. I knew that AoT was not going to be about Greek Mythology, but I played around with the idea of what if it was...
The story came first, this title and cover came later (like, last night). Jäger der Titanen is a weird mix of post-apocalypse shenanigans, Hunger Games, and, I suppose, a dash of Attack on Titan, since the main group of humans ARE in fact fighting Titans, only their Titans are legit Greek Mythology Titans, not inept giant zombies.
Per all my books, there of course would be lots of higher-ups corruption, blood and gore, character deaths, and a major sense of depressing failure and loss. Yay!
The tone was set mostly by Death Eaters, which I was also editing and tweaking during the initial idea for this story.
The actual working title for it was "Attack on Titan". But that obviously changed, as it will probably change again if I so decide. After some thought, I also switched the original main character from Arkadi Alkara to his best friend Elfen Blau. Of course, if I do finish and publish this, it will probably face a lot of hate xD Hate for the win!
Oh, and Jäger der Titanen means Hunter of Titans. ^^
There is not much to say about this final book. Unlike the previous two, it is not from an anime title. It's simply called "Wolf", and it will be my take on a werewolf story. The main character is named Mai, and he's in a pack. And shtuff happens that's really bad...
Anyway, it was sort of born from seeing so many UBER SHITTY AS FUCK werewolf stories on wattpad. The carbon copied "I'm Ebony Dark death dementia raven way and my life is crappy and I got rejected by the alpha even though I'm his twu wuv and his SOULMATE!" just kinda made me want to cry. What has happened to creativity and why? WHY???!!!
Thankfully there are people like Liam and my friend FlyOn who are good at writing original and AWESOME shifter stories (wolf or otherwise) and thank GOD that I have other friends like Fili and Dawny and Cel and everyone else who have heads on their shoulders.
Without further ado, here is the cover, cause I love it. It is bae.
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