Repulsive Graphics [CFCU]

26🔸️How I Banner, the try-hard route

Banner, part two

As promised, here's a more detailed look at how I make banners. There are a few tips and lessons in here about lighting, composition, and Frankenstein-ing a dragon together.

The banner I'll be showing you is another one that goes into my not-yet-published short stories book. (Self-plug) The book is a collection of stories based on a few characters from "The Death of a Dream" series including Dominitus, whom I'll refrain from talking about to avoid spoilers.

There are 2 tutorials in this: the video tutorial for how I made the image and then the text tutorial. My screen recorder kept glitching out when I was trying to do my text and detailing tutorial so I'll have to do that one in step-by-step images.

Banner concept

Knowing exactly what you're going to make before you make it is a pretty helpful idea, but if there's one rule of design I believe in it's that often times the end product is nowhere near your original vision. So instead of planning out what exactly should be on any design, I list down things I want to incorporate.

So for this banner, I wanted the Aegil blossom (gold flower), tarot card reference, mysterious creature, light vs dark, enigmatic vibe, and the words "The Fool"/"Dominitus". I don't know how I would incorporate those things, but I do know I want a few of those in there somewhere.

Video tutorial (base image only)

You might've noticed that a lot of the stuff I put in, like the circles and the star halo, didn't make it into the final piece. I really wanted to incorporate the tarot design elements, but it just wasn't working. As I said, sometimes not all ideas work and your original vision may not be the best course of action for the piece. That doesn't mean you've failed; just means there's another way to accomplish your goal and it isn't that way.

Base image video breakdown (simplified)

This 'breakdown' will be simplified to not include the mistakes I made and will go straight to explaining a lot of the stuff I did.