Is it improved? Yes, quite a bit. (Click the image above for a closer look.) Is it still very obviously a ‘head pasted on yay’ Photoshop job? Yes. But at least the head itself is slightly better? For Mara, anyway. Overall: Meh.
Remember those neat painted covers we were getting for a while? Can we please get more of those? At least for Zahn? (via)
Yes, please, on the painted covers. Get some talent in there and get rid of the atrocious Photoshop exercises on this and the FOTJ covers. I don’t understand why fans go ga-ga over obviously Photoshopped images for their covers.
They gave her extensions & a pink lightsaber? Meh encore.
I’m not sure whose fault the magenta lightsaber is (Dark Horse? Decipher?) but a hearty >:( to them.
Better. But her bangs. It just looks atrocious.
Yes please to the painted covers!
I like how they added the glow to the title and changed the bizarre position of the stormtroopers. I liked her eyes on the first one better though. If you don’t click on the images and just see the little preview images you can’t see the green at all, and it looks like she’s rolling her eyes.
they chopped off her hand! (behind the saber) — except that they missed a portion of her arm to the left of the saber.
at least that one trooper doesn’t look like he’s about to fall over any more.
and Dunc: the magenta saber i believe was first done by Decipher’s art team, though the cover to The Last Command has her using a green saber.
Well, it’s better. Not a lot better, but what are you going to do?
I notice that the Stormtroopers are still popping out from behind her like Marx brothers from behind a convenient lamp post, and you know what? I’m kind of glad. Because I still think it’s hilarious.
Very much looking forward to the book, but agreed – horrible covers. Like it was said earlier what happened to the days of those gorgeous Struzan covers? When there are guys like Matt Busch and Randy Martinez doing artwork that would be perfectly suitable its beyond me why we get stuff like this, which wouldn’t look out of place on a fanfic book.
Am I the only one who actually likes these covers?
Man, I even like the first one more than the second. The latter’s changed her eyes in a strange way so that they almost look like they’re rolled back into her head.
Also, the position of the stormtroopers didn’t bother me a bit. You can clearly see in the first cover that Mara’s beckoning the troopers to stop in their places and one of them gets tripped up by the sudden stop. (The trooper even appears to be based off of the brief scene in A New Hope when one of the stormtroopers invading Tantive IV momentarily looses his balance).
Lastly, I’m just happy to get Mara on the front of a cover. :)
I’ve been going through the Bantam era recently, and I’m struck by just how much more… epic the painted covers look. Don’t get me wrong – I liked the photo-image covers when they started, and I think Revenge of the Sith had an excellent cover, but I think that most of the books, particularly the Fate of the Jedi series, would be better served by painted covers than what we’re getting now.
It would make sure everyone gets cover time, at least. Why should Japan have all the fun? :P
Off-topic: Does the lighting on the Ascension cover look just wrong to anyone else? I swear it would look much better if Vestara was behind Ben, rather than the other way around – that way, it would make more visual sense for Vestara to be more in shadow, and they would be giving each other wary looks rather than Ben glancing at her and Vestara glaring at the reader. As it is, she strikes me as looking pasteded on yey, as the internet phrase goes. :\
You’re not alone, Alex – I like them too. A decent pic of Mara or Luke (and one that’s NOT from the movies) and I’m ok.
What interests me is how small changes like those of Mara’s face can actually chance her expression so much – she looks so much more hardboiled in the newest image! And while her hair is more “Maraisch” on this one, the first would be smarter for an assassin, though.. Long, loose hair just doesn’t belong…
Is it just me or are those troopers photoshopped in as well?
So…they added drop shadow on “Choices of One” or something?
How hard would it be to grab a redheaded model and some 501st troopers to pose for a shot, instead of slapdash in photoshop? It feels kind of fan-arty.
@jedifreac: Now that is a good idea, right there. With the amount of care that the 501st guys put into their kit, I think it would be a great gesture to see them used on the covers of books.
Actually, didn’t DelRay use a couple of 501st guys for that little trailer they shot advertising Death Troopers a couple of years ago?
Doyle: Yeah, they did.
To be fair, it’s not great, but not nearly as awful as some of the photoshopped fanfic covers. Back in the day there used to be some real horrors in the TFN fic archive, and I still avoid that part of the site. Total turn-off.