Let’s begin with… uh… the beginning. I have four photos of my daughter, Mollie, to use on the cover art for my newest novel. I am making copies of all the changes as we go, because I have to use 300 DPI and huge images for the actual cover, and that is too big for the blog. Let’s call that ‘picture 1’.

There is a closeup of her face in picture 1. I made her not wear any makeup. She is supposed to be a princess, leading an armed resistance to a dark empire. I like that photo. The hair blowing across the face is awesome. She looks tough and yet vulnerable, like a teenage princess leading an armed rebellion should look, right?

Picture 2 is similar, but she is looking more face-on to us.

Maybe she looks too friendly in that one? Not fierce enough?

In picture 3, she isn’t holding a spear… yes, I know, it is a piece of PVC pipe, but as you saw in the mock-ups in the first post, I can change it to a spear in Photoshop.

It is a good picture of her face, and the hair over her eye, well, I like that.

And picture 4, I took that one in front of a blank wall, so I could separate her out in Photoshop more easily. I mean, I can do it in the others, it is just harder. And I can get rid of some or all of the bushes behind her in the first photos. I still want the beach and the boats, like I said in the first post.

And that is a good tough-girl face. On the other hand, I like the dappled sunlight in the earlier ones.

Just a reminder, this is just step one. We need to decide on the best photo. We can worry about the rest later. So help me pick a picture!