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amplificathonHowever, better late than never, right? This is a post that I was supposed to post weeks ago but it got too wordy and I had to choose between 30+ "most awesomest covers!" I had bookmarked. Podficcers are too talented for me. :D <33
I've split these into categories to help me focus on a manageable number since I tend to TL;DR squee.
About me and how I rec: While I've reached a point where I like most of what I can draw, I'm not there yet with graphics. The great side of this is that the little bit of technique I know or tried to do helps me understand the effort and skills talented people put into their works. It also gives me a much bigger vocabulary to rec with than when I try to rec podfic themselves. Just like my podfic recs though, I consider cover art to be an individual fanwork-of-fanwork and will heavily focus on that piece of art itself, and less on the related fanworks (some of which I haven't even listened to yet!).
** Use of Collage recs **
[Bandom (MCR)] Run
Cover art by: aneas
Podfic by: argentumlupine
Fic by: mrsronweasley
Summary + creators notes: Being a secret teenage werewolf is hard. Frank should know. He is one. (This podfic contains werewolves and angst and porn and teenage boys in love -- ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE. Enjoy! :D )
Reason of reccing the cover: I loved how many pictures the artist was able to incorporate in this cover without making it looking clustered. The grungyness and overlapped textures of it were also great choices for aesthetics and to go with both the nice raw reading and source text matter. I also like the limited colours of this: how even fairly muted they stood up and made Frank's eyes stare into us at every glance at my tiny iPod screen.
[Teen Wolf] Open the Door
Cover art by: quintenttsy
Podfic by: fire_juggler
Fic by: Renay
Summary + creators notes: Derek gives Stiles his jacket. (Podficcer note: it's just… everything I want a Derek/Stiles fic to be. There is so much pining! and UST! and Derek being all ARG!! and Stiles being all…. Stiles!! and the Sheriff being his usual awesome self! and Scott being an idiot!! and Jackson being unexpectedly cool!!! )
Reason of reccing: I don't know how to start about this cover because it's so gorgeous. Look at it! It's fairly dark-coloured but is marine and not black, which I think matches fire_juggler's beautiful voice that she pitches lower for this podfic. Then we have those two splashes of colours, which are like more mature versions of the blue-and-orange combo that's very popular for this particular ship (Derek/Stiles) in visual fanworks. The pictures glued together for this are really well put together, very nicely blend and colour adjusted (levelled) to all match together and create a very visually pleasant whole. The choice of pictures used and fonts also give great impressions and are easily recognisable from afar (the scenes that the screencaps are taken from are well known and popular for this ship as well). I love how well it's all comes together, is instantly recognisable and gives off the mood perfectly.
** Use of one own's ressources recs **
[Inception] Presque Vu
Cover art by: bessyboo
Podfic by: [n/a]
Fic by: rageprufrock
Summary + creators notes: Or, "on the tip of the tongue." Arthur meets Mal first. He inherits Dom, after. Everything else is on him. [This was done for Podfic Big Bang where the art alone was posted]
Reason of reccing: This one requires some knowledge of the sources (canon and text, here), but I think you can appreciate the overall beauty anyhow: Photography!
My initial reaction to seeing the cover (after "nice colour choices!") was "that's a perfectly found stock photo". Reading the artist notes, it turns out the cover artist took a picture of their own sneakers for this! Kudos to Bessyboo for being so multitalented.
The colours are lively and combined with the black and white (BnW) of the characters, they contrast nicely. For those who aren't familiar with the text source and/or canon, know that this is a great representation of the relationships going on in the text next to what we know from the canon. The font is what slays me though: look at how the title cuts out at the shoes, giving the illusion that it's pushed back behind the ticket and adding lovely depths to the image. I like all 3 (I think?) different font used, and where each text zone is situated. It nicely encourages my eye to follow along the shoes and dip along the characters.
Last, speaking of characters, observe where each are looking, who is staring at who across their frames in a meaningful manner. Yeah. Seriously. That's awesome choice of pictures and framing right there. If you aren't drawing a heart on your computer screen over this cover right now, I'm doing it for you.
[Highjacking this rec to say you should also check out Bessyboo's work on [Due South] Chicago’s Most Wanted that has awesome use of font and shapes! It goes from the police line and the BnW + police-tape-yellow used, to how it really looks like an Hollywood movie poster, to the black shapes of the gun plus the handcuffs locked on the O of Chicago. It's eye catching, easy to read, memorable, and cleverly designed. She also did the really smart Awesome ladies anthology cover. In fact, I reccomend all of Bessyboo's podfic cover art. *3*
[Bandom: American Idol] Tightly Knit
Cover art by: reena_jenkins
Podfic by: fire_juggler
Fic by: jeyhawk
Summary College student Adam Lambert doesn't really believe in the magical powers of knitting needles until he meets Kris Allen, knitting shop owner by day and gay erotica writer by night. Kris is an enigma wrapped in an adorable package and Adam finds himself wanting to strip away his layers (literally as well as figuratively), but at the end of the day will that be enough to make Adam mess with his carefully laid plans, or will his desire to "make it" stand in the way of true love?
Reason of reccing: As a magical crafter, Reena KNITTED THIS SCARF. This on the cover is the scarf. It's sparkly, tightly woven, elegantly simple with dangly dance-y bits, purple, and with sequins. It's practically a scarf impersonification of Adam Lambert. And Reena_jenkins made it, took pictures to immortalise it into a quirky, adorable cover, and gave both to the reader. If you don't understand how completely utterly BADASS that is I can't do anything for you.
Speaking of Reena, do check out all of her covers. I love how diversified she is, how she gives attention to finding the perfect font for each cover, and how her use of filters and clever editing always give an instantaneous feel of the podfic's atmosphere. See this example post with 16 (!!!) completely different and unique covers, and admire with me how broad a range of style she can do.
[Skyfall] Minus One Degree Centigrade
Cover art and podfic by: Greedy_dancer
Fic by: lc2l
Summary: In which there is snow and everyone is excessively British.
Reason of reccing: Greedy_dancer went out in the snow and drew this title herself using chopsticks in the snow. This is the beautiful result of going outside at cold-oh-fuck in the perfect snow-depth to match the source text's, hunting down several patches of clean, flat snow, handwriting down podfic info, then taking pictures quickly before a dog came by and pissed on your hard work, and THEN stich them all together seamlessly. I just adore the concept, and admire the dedication to doing it and the skills of pulling it off. And snow. I freaking love snow, which is very Canadian-without-a-car of me, but here we have it. This cover charms my heart all over.
[The Social Network RPF] The Giraffe Notes
Cover art by: art by jeyhawk, cover by Lunchy
Podfic by: lunchy_munchy
Fic by: jeyhawk
Summary + creators notes: The impossible love story of a mouse and a giraffe featuring a crush that last a decade, a very grateful movie star, the fine art of falling in love over the internet, a possibly naughty tattoo, three awesome friends, cats, nerves, and a spectacular first date. (A story comprised of all my favourite tropes! And super cute to boot. I've gone to some extra trouble inserting pictures in the appropriate places - a new 'cover' for every 'chapter' to enhance your enjoyment of the story - so download the audiobook if you can! )
Reason of reccing: You do not need to know any canon to enjoy this piece and its visual art. This art was made by the writer themselves, as they were writing the universe. They are teeth-rotting adorable and of course perfect for the text but also the podfic because Lunchee herself is teeth-rottingly adorable. What really gets to me though is how cleverly Lunchee worked them into the podfic, and I mean that in every way. When you get the audiobook, there's at least half a dozen different covers in this podfic that you will see one after the other, as they appear in the context. If I'm not mistaken, Lunchee cut up the podfic into fake-sections so as to give each a different "cover" so as to do this. It's clever in the making and also extremely effective. There's also a verbal description of the pictures included in the audio so that you still get to go AWWWW even if you don't have the visuals. And let me tell you, you *will* go awwww. By the way, Lunchy_munchy is also on all of my rec lists pertaining to voice acting, incorporation of sound effects, voice distortion, and being a great human being; and I keep stumbling on amazing fics in not-my-fandoms only to discover they've been written by Jeyhawk (such as the American Idol rec above!) Check them out! :D
** Composition rec **
[Bandom: MCR] Might I Have A Bit of Earth
Cover art by: theopteryx
Podfic by: shiningartifact
Fic by: theopteryx
Summary: Gerard took things. He didn’t used to take things; he used to ask before, say please and may I and other things his parents taught him, because that was what you did. You didn’t just take.
Reason of reccing: Look at this gorgeous composition. *__* The circle looks like a red sun - something sci-fi for sure, but also something bloody, and yet awe-striking. And it touches both characters because it affects them and links them together, but one is looking away from it and the other is caught in it like a trap. The background look like grunge at first until you realise it's also scattered stars and that gives them a new meaning as well as lost in space, isolated from the frame and rest of the image elements. Last, that text - the font is clean and cut and span the whole bottom of the cover, weighting it down and giving the impression of ground for the red star's sun. The whole concept is simple and understated and brilliant.
** Overall Feel **
[Teen Wolf] Truth or Dare
Cover art + Podfic by: neverbalance
Fic by: dsudis
Summary: When Stiles said, "Hey, let's play truth or dare," Derek swallowed the anticipation of pain and humiliation and said, "Okay."
Reason of reccing: This is really for "overall look that has a lot of to with colours and font and composition". First, know that this is a feel-good type of podfic, with established-relationship-still-working-on-their-issues, and it's two characters having this light-hearted Truth or Dare game, and one of the dare is about a Mountain Dew drinking. So the cover is a nice play on that - it's obviously very cleverly made to look like Mountain Dew fashion - colour, font, bubbles! - but with a different kind of pointy angles around the central words. See what it did there, with light-hearted-working-through-edges? Not only does it befits the tone of the content perfectly, it's also has great easy-to-remember visual impact so that people will instantly recognise it in tiny form and remember the soft drink involved in the story. I loved that all of that.
Thank you for checking out!
I've split these into categories to help me focus on a manageable number since I tend to TL;DR squee.
About me and how I rec: While I've reached a point where I like most of what I can draw, I'm not there yet with graphics. The great side of this is that the little bit of technique I know or tried to do helps me understand the effort and skills talented people put into their works. It also gives me a much bigger vocabulary to rec with than when I try to rec podfic themselves. Just like my podfic recs though, I consider cover art to be an individual fanwork-of-fanwork and will heavily focus on that piece of art itself, and less on the related fanworks (some of which I haven't even listened to yet!).
** Use of Collage recs **
[Bandom (MCR)] Run
Cover art by: aneas
Podfic by: argentumlupine
Fic by: mrsronweasley
Summary + creators notes: Being a secret teenage werewolf is hard. Frank should know. He is one. (This podfic contains werewolves and angst and porn and teenage boys in love -- ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE. Enjoy! :D )
Reason of reccing the cover: I loved how many pictures the artist was able to incorporate in this cover without making it looking clustered. The grungyness and overlapped textures of it were also great choices for aesthetics and to go with both the nice raw reading and source text matter. I also like the limited colours of this: how even fairly muted they stood up and made Frank's eyes stare into us at every glance at my tiny iPod screen.
[Teen Wolf] Open the Door
Cover art by: quintenttsy
Podfic by: fire_juggler
Fic by: Renay
Summary + creators notes: Derek gives Stiles his jacket. (Podficcer note: it's just… everything I want a Derek/Stiles fic to be. There is so much pining! and UST! and Derek being all ARG!! and Stiles being all…. Stiles!! and the Sheriff being his usual awesome self! and Scott being an idiot!! and Jackson being unexpectedly cool!!! )
Reason of reccing: I don't know how to start about this cover because it's so gorgeous. Look at it! It's fairly dark-coloured but is marine and not black, which I think matches fire_juggler's beautiful voice that she pitches lower for this podfic. Then we have those two splashes of colours, which are like more mature versions of the blue-and-orange combo that's very popular for this particular ship (Derek/Stiles) in visual fanworks. The pictures glued together for this are really well put together, very nicely blend and colour adjusted (levelled) to all match together and create a very visually pleasant whole. The choice of pictures used and fonts also give great impressions and are easily recognisable from afar (the scenes that the screencaps are taken from are well known and popular for this ship as well). I love how well it's all comes together, is instantly recognisable and gives off the mood perfectly.
** Use of one own's ressources recs **
[Inception] Presque Vu
Cover art by: bessyboo
Podfic by: [n/a]
Fic by: rageprufrock
Summary + creators notes: Or, "on the tip of the tongue." Arthur meets Mal first. He inherits Dom, after. Everything else is on him. [This was done for Podfic Big Bang where the art alone was posted]
Reason of reccing: This one requires some knowledge of the sources (canon and text, here), but I think you can appreciate the overall beauty anyhow: Photography!
My initial reaction to seeing the cover (after "nice colour choices!") was "that's a perfectly found stock photo". Reading the artist notes, it turns out the cover artist took a picture of their own sneakers for this! Kudos to Bessyboo for being so multitalented.
The colours are lively and combined with the black and white (BnW) of the characters, they contrast nicely. For those who aren't familiar with the text source and/or canon, know that this is a great representation of the relationships going on in the text next to what we know from the canon. The font is what slays me though: look at how the title cuts out at the shoes, giving the illusion that it's pushed back behind the ticket and adding lovely depths to the image. I like all 3 (I think?) different font used, and where each text zone is situated. It nicely encourages my eye to follow along the shoes and dip along the characters.
Last, speaking of characters, observe where each are looking, who is staring at who across their frames in a meaningful manner. Yeah. Seriously. That's awesome choice of pictures and framing right there. If you aren't drawing a heart on your computer screen over this cover right now, I'm doing it for you.
[Highjacking this rec to say you should also check out Bessyboo's work on [Due South] Chicago’s Most Wanted that has awesome use of font and shapes! It goes from the police line and the BnW + police-tape-yellow used, to how it really looks like an Hollywood movie poster, to the black shapes of the gun plus the handcuffs locked on the O of Chicago. It's eye catching, easy to read, memorable, and cleverly designed. She also did the really smart Awesome ladies anthology cover. In fact, I reccomend all of Bessyboo's podfic cover art. *3*
[Bandom: American Idol] Tightly Knit
Cover art by: reena_jenkins
Podfic by: fire_juggler
Fic by: jeyhawk
Summary College student Adam Lambert doesn't really believe in the magical powers of knitting needles until he meets Kris Allen, knitting shop owner by day and gay erotica writer by night. Kris is an enigma wrapped in an adorable package and Adam finds himself wanting to strip away his layers (literally as well as figuratively), but at the end of the day will that be enough to make Adam mess with his carefully laid plans, or will his desire to "make it" stand in the way of true love?
Reason of reccing: As a magical crafter, Reena KNITTED THIS SCARF. This on the cover is the scarf. It's sparkly, tightly woven, elegantly simple with dangly dance-y bits, purple, and with sequins. It's practically a scarf impersonification of Adam Lambert. And Reena_jenkins made it, took pictures to immortalise it into a quirky, adorable cover, and gave both to the reader. If you don't understand how completely utterly BADASS that is I can't do anything for you.
Speaking of Reena, do check out all of her covers. I love how diversified she is, how she gives attention to finding the perfect font for each cover, and how her use of filters and clever editing always give an instantaneous feel of the podfic's atmosphere. See this example post with 16 (!!!) completely different and unique covers, and admire with me how broad a range of style she can do.
[Skyfall] Minus One Degree Centigrade
Cover art and podfic by: Greedy_dancer
Fic by: lc2l
Summary: In which there is snow and everyone is excessively British.
Reason of reccing: Greedy_dancer went out in the snow and drew this title herself using chopsticks in the snow. This is the beautiful result of going outside at cold-oh-fuck in the perfect snow-depth to match the source text's, hunting down several patches of clean, flat snow, handwriting down podfic info, then taking pictures quickly before a dog came by and pissed on your hard work, and THEN stich them all together seamlessly. I just adore the concept, and admire the dedication to doing it and the skills of pulling it off. And snow. I freaking love snow, which is very Canadian-without-a-car of me, but here we have it. This cover charms my heart all over.
[The Social Network RPF] The Giraffe Notes
Cover art by: art by jeyhawk, cover by Lunchy
Podfic by: lunchy_munchy
Fic by: jeyhawk
Summary + creators notes: The impossible love story of a mouse and a giraffe featuring a crush that last a decade, a very grateful movie star, the fine art of falling in love over the internet, a possibly naughty tattoo, three awesome friends, cats, nerves, and a spectacular first date. (A story comprised of all my favourite tropes! And super cute to boot. I've gone to some extra trouble inserting pictures in the appropriate places - a new 'cover' for every 'chapter' to enhance your enjoyment of the story - so download the audiobook if you can! )
Reason of reccing: You do not need to know any canon to enjoy this piece and its visual art. This art was made by the writer themselves, as they were writing the universe. They are teeth-rotting adorable and of course perfect for the text but also the podfic because Lunchee herself is teeth-rottingly adorable. What really gets to me though is how cleverly Lunchee worked them into the podfic, and I mean that in every way. When you get the audiobook, there's at least half a dozen different covers in this podfic that you will see one after the other, as they appear in the context. If I'm not mistaken, Lunchee cut up the podfic into fake-sections so as to give each a different "cover" so as to do this. It's clever in the making and also extremely effective. There's also a verbal description of the pictures included in the audio so that you still get to go AWWWW even if you don't have the visuals. And let me tell you, you *will* go awwww. By the way, Lunchy_munchy is also on all of my rec lists pertaining to voice acting, incorporation of sound effects, voice distortion, and being a great human being; and I keep stumbling on amazing fics in not-my-fandoms only to discover they've been written by Jeyhawk (such as the American Idol rec above!) Check them out! :D
** Composition rec **
[Bandom: MCR] Might I Have A Bit of Earth
Cover art by: theopteryx
Podfic by: shiningartifact
Fic by: theopteryx
Summary: Gerard took things. He didn’t used to take things; he used to ask before, say please and may I and other things his parents taught him, because that was what you did. You didn’t just take.
Reason of reccing: Look at this gorgeous composition. *__* The circle looks like a red sun - something sci-fi for sure, but also something bloody, and yet awe-striking. And it touches both characters because it affects them and links them together, but one is looking away from it and the other is caught in it like a trap. The background look like grunge at first until you realise it's also scattered stars and that gives them a new meaning as well as lost in space, isolated from the frame and rest of the image elements. Last, that text - the font is clean and cut and span the whole bottom of the cover, weighting it down and giving the impression of ground for the red star's sun. The whole concept is simple and understated and brilliant.
** Overall Feel **
[Teen Wolf] Truth or Dare
Cover art + Podfic by: neverbalance
Fic by: dsudis
Summary: When Stiles said, "Hey, let's play truth or dare," Derek swallowed the anticipation of pain and humiliation and said, "Okay."
Reason of reccing: This is really for "overall look that has a lot of to with colours and font and composition". First, know that this is a feel-good type of podfic, with established-relationship-still-working-on-their-issues, and it's two characters having this light-hearted Truth or Dare game, and one of the dare is about a Mountain Dew drinking. So the cover is a nice play on that - it's obviously very cleverly made to look like Mountain Dew fashion - colour, font, bubbles! - but with a different kind of pointy angles around the central words. See what it did there, with light-hearted-working-through-edges? Not only does it befits the tone of the content perfectly, it's also has great easy-to-remember visual impact so that people will instantly recognise it in tiny form and remember the soft drink involved in the story. I loved that all of that.
Thank you for checking out!