A really bad piece of artwork could put your listeners off from hearing something they may really enjoy but also a really good one may make a show look a million times better.
How is artwork created?
The artwork can be created by a number of different methods such as hand drawn, software such as Gimp, Blender , Inkscape, and Photoshop.
What sort of things should be on a piece of artwork
(This is just my opinion you may just to only have one of those or 2 or if your very experiment none)
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Title of Show
You would be surprised that some audio drama artworks don’t have the title on their artwork this makes it difficult to find the show if you just come across the artwork.
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Pictures.
It”s unlikely you will fit every single character and important object onto your front cover artwork so it’s important to feature maybe main characters or something which is a key object to the series. -
Cast and crew.
A cast or crew member can also attract people to the show as they will have heard the work of them before and people will either like the actors or have more faith in the show because they have something they at least know
You don’t possess the skills or have the time or interest in learning artwork creation?
There are many creative people online and you can find them in groups or even amongst your friends list who create some artwork for you. Also there are are website that you can use royalty free images then all you have to do is apply text to them. I did this for a project called Terror of the Night Cat and also Organism I imported the image into Gimp then just added the title and some cast and crew credits. The downside to grabbing a royalty free image or images is that it won’t have as much of a personal connection with the show as a new crafted image would and also can be difficult to blend the colour of your text with the images if you don’t have much experience with the software or artwork creation Whether it’s for your band page, audio drama, film or game etc.
Over the years I myself have had artwork created by friends for shows and also for my composer pages. Matt Leong created the artwork for All’s Fair and you can hear how he created this from the link here, he’s also created 2 or 3 pieces of artwork that I can use on my composer pages which represent me. Kessi Rikiniki has created 2-3 pieces of artwork for my composer pages. I have also had artwork done by a few other people and they all have been terrific at listening to what I want. When you are chatting with people who are creating your artwork make sure your clear about what you want or you will waste theirs and your own time. Here are some of the artwork pieces that have been made for me over the years.
How much should I charge/pay for artwork
Whether your selling or buying artwork remember to take into account
- The Complexities of the work
- How Long Will it take
- How Quick is the artwork needed
- Is it just one piece of work or multiple (you could apply discounts for multiple pieces)
- If you can’t afford to pay or someone else can’t afford to pay is there a trade that can be made (aww that rhymes)
such as a piece of artwork for a piece of music or some voice acting etc. - Be realistic about your price there is no point charging thousands if you already know the project or person doesn’t have that amount of money.
My own journey into artwork creation.
For many years I have played with the software called Gimp. It is a fun piece of software but I have struggled to make anything look half decent in the software. Earlier in the year as I began work on my video game project Strange Invasion I began learning lots of new software such as unity and Blender. Blender has become a very fun tool to use especially when I am feeling unwell. You can use it to create animations, 3d artwork, models for video games and more. It’s very creative piece of software and more importantly it’s free. Learning Blender can be very difficult to start with so make sure you watch some tutorials
What is Blender?
Blender is a professional, free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games.
Since learning Blender I have not only created some enemy models for my video game but I have also made some short animations and quite a few bits of 3d artwork. Here are some artwork pieces I have made in Blender
