Hi,
My name is James and I’m new to Blender. I am actually an aspiring author about to publish my first book which is science fiction in the military and alternate history genres.
Long story short, a friend of mine published a story, “Soldier of the Republic” (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soldier-Republic-Mr-Ben-Slythe/dp/0956999050/ref=sr_1_sc_1) but I have been critical of his cover artwork since I believe that the cover of a book is important (it’s what makes people pick your book up or access it digitally) and his cover, a digital cliffscape, says very little about the book. BTW, if any of you like science fiction and fancy a good read I would thoroughly recommend his book, criticisms of the cover aside it is extremely well written and entertaining.
Anyway, I have been liaising indirectly (through my oldest daughter) for several months with a young artist but have been unable to get much more than a couple of samples when what I really want is a quote and an ETA. Cost is an issue because I have no idea how much money my book will make if any and have set myself a budget of £50 (about 63 dollars or 57 euros). Anyway, I am now investigating other options.
I contacted an artist who designs covers for books and was told the cost would be between 1 and 2 thousand dollars which is a little higher than my budget. I looked at free art (and by free I mean it has to be categorically stated as such) the best source of which appears to be the NASA/JPL libraries and, although there are some pictures I could potentially use, I would prefer something a little more specific. I contacted several artists on DeviantArt to ask if I could use some of their artwork but have had no response the best part of a week later.
So now I am down to brass tacks … unless I can find someone to either give me permission to use their work (fully credited) or create me a cover within my budget I have to either use straightforward image from a free source such as NASA or create my own. I use Inkscape quite extensively, indeed have used it to create drawings of many of the vehicles involved in my story, but I don’t think it is possible to use that to create the kind of picture I want even if I just create the vehicle and merge it with some free art. So I downloaded Blender and started following a YouTube tutorial about creating a space ship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaPd4ieTmng) which lost me almost immediately. Around 4 minutes in the video author loads some images into blender and, specifically at 4.55, says something about “going to that mode there” which I assume is why I can’t see the image in question.
And this is why I have ended up here, to find some help on how to create something like that space ship as quickly as possible so I can create a half decent cover and publish my book.
Any help or ideas most gratefully appreciated.
Thx
Keke (James)
