BUT THE LEVEL OF DETAIL IN THE JACKET/SHIRT VS PAINTERLY NONSPECIFICITY OF HAIR/FACE IS V WEIRD TO ME. there’s just SUCH a higher level of detail in her clothes than her face or hair, and this would explain the vagueness of her sword-things and also possibly why she’s barefoot and blue–this was a character that was, before it was Calealananeana. This illustration to me doesn’t say “was commissioned for a book cover” it says someone was doing concepting for something else, it never got used, and when bloomsbury said “female assassin?” it got pulled out and purchased. (By the way–this is pure speculation, but I feel like the original illustration of C was costume concept art for some unrelated project.

a milquetoast photomanip is all she deserves so i DO NOT feel bad about this. look how cool that is.Ģ) I don’t mind that her hair’s absurdly long, bc you can get away with that in illustration, but for some reason it’s smudgy and flat and weird? Like it’s just so badly painted in comparison to the detail on her outfit? I don’t want to denigrate the placement/ movement of it because it’s the only dynamic thing on this godforsaken cover but it’s weird and i went w some tamer photomanip. “but it doesn’t look as badass and edgy!” aint fuckall about caelealealnsnsnsan that’s half as badass and edgy as the illustration. Why is she blue? I don’t demand she be a rosy-cheeked princess but honestly wtf? anyway look at how you can have a blue filter without making her look like a zombie. Second of all, listen, i try to keep my salt about the actual contents of the books separate from my salt about the covers of the books, but we’re making an exception today, because I loathe TOG inside & outside and we’re all just gonna have to be cool with that.ġ) My main, #1, most hated element of this cover (and all the covers in the series) is how caelealananananaa (listen i can’t spell her name so i dont even try) (YES I KNOW SHE BECOMES AELIN IDC) looks like a frozen corpse. The main thing i did was unfuck the colors and the contrast en masse, but LETS TALK.

Throne of glass covers