King Kong (2005)

[magnumrulz]

I had done this covers long ago and looking at it now, I would like some opinions. I have 3 different title treatments for the front. The back is the same on all 3 versions. But, I might redo the entire back. I'm not sure why, but whenever I look at the back, I do not like it now. The quality is not up to snuff. Especially the credits. They look horrible!

Here is the first one. TT matches the background really nice but looks a little soft.

[attachment=41382:king_kong_1.jpg]

[magnumrulz]

#2 - Made it a brighter green for jungle theme.

[attachment=41384:king_kong_2.jpg]

[bazzah]

I prefer the brighter title I would also consider justifying the text on the back, as it looks a little messy at the moment

[magnumrulz]

#3 - I really like this one. It's a nice pop of color. Plus the texture stands out more.

BTW - I forgot to mention where the artwork came from. It is a Ken Kelley painting. I have a large lithograph of it and always thought it would make a great cover.

[attachment=41385:king_kong_3.jpg]

[bazzah]

That one is good too

[sauron]

I think the back is too busy at the moment, the synopsis is very big, I would consider shortening it and the image on the back I feel is making it hard to layout everything... might be an idea to go down a different route for it so you work on a different layout?

[Speedz0r]

I also prefer the second TT.
Here's one way you could layout the back.
[attachment=41388:Untitled_1.jpg]
You could fade the back image into the background on the bottom, so the credits area isn't so busy.

However, it seems like the front is from an old version of the movie, while the back is from a modern version, meaning it can be misleading. I don't know if this is the case tho, it's just what it looks like to me. The spine could use some work, like some frames around the image on the top and the one on the bottom. I'm also not a fan of completely black backgrounds, maybe go for a dark grunge texture or something else that might fit. Right now it looks like there's a big black background around the TT, like if you hadn't cut it out yet.

[magnumrulz]

Thanks for the input so far! My thoughts on the back has been to start from scratch and change entire layout. I liked it when I first made it years ago. But now, I do agree that's it's too much.

Speedz0r - Artwork on front is not from any of the movies. It was a painting done by fantasy artist Ken Kelly (1991 I think). He did another painting of King Kong fighting a T-rex.

I plan on working on it this weekend.

[magnumrulz]

I decided to start from scratch. For some reason, I did not save the different TT's as PSP files. Also, the quality of it was sub-par. Since then, I have a better TT and will use it and play around with the coloring.

I also changed the back. My thinking is since the front is artwork, make the back as well. It, also, is a painting done by Ken Kelly. It was very bright so I darkened it up a bit and lightened up the front to get them a bit more even.

What are your thought on the back? Should I go with the artwork or stick with the original back from the movie?

[attachment=41389:king_long_2005.jpg]

[sauron]

Using that image back is going to make it very busy and will be tough to get a good layout with all the information required whilst keeping the image visible. Me personally I would take a look at how other covers are laid out and follow them as a guide to create a layout for your cover.