Covers

Most of the Timelines books to date have two covers -- the original, and the rebooted version.

The original covers were made in DAZ3D Studio Pro, and usually the text was added using Adobe Photoshop 7. (Yes. 7. That CD has followed me around for years and been used since at least Windows XP.)

The rebooted covers are MidJourney creations, usually two images put together with Adobe Photoshop 2023. The Photoshop version is important because that upgrade included an enhanced object recognition tool that makes it child's play to mask and cut an image (say, of Ariela) out of a background that doesn't fit the story, or is too "far out" or otherwise unusable. For instance, the image I generated for the new cover of The Lion of God had her backed up against an impossible aircraft, so I cut her out of that and placed her on top of another MidJourney image of a starship. I'm now doing the lettering and other manipulation of covers in Adobe InDesign 2023, which is a lot easier than trying to do the lettering in Photoshop. Use the right tool for the job, y'know? Besides, it's easier to lay out a paperback or hardback cover in InDesign. (For what it's worth, all of the paperback and hardback covers have been laid out in InDesign.)

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of my very good and nearly life-long friend Geoff Edwards, who first patiently tutored me in DAZ3D Studio, advised me on cover layout, and later advised me more with MidJourney and helped me clean up the frequent "bad eyes/too many fingers" problems MidJ had in the beginning. The cover of The Tale of the Crane Princess is entirely his, based on a discussion we had about the plot and Tsurue's initial inability to leave Ōmishima. It wasn't a scene from the book, but I hope it captures for the reader (as it does for me) her longing to understand her past and her wish to leave the island to explore the wider world.

Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the keen eye of author and friend Sarah A. Hoyt for telling me my covers sucked (they did, you can see them right down there) and kicked my ass into gear working on replacing them. Ms. Hoyt has been a great help to me in this regard, I simply could not have done it without her.

Book	DAZ3D (original) Cover	MidJourney Cover
The Lion of God
The Lion and the Lizard
The Lion in Paradise
The Lion and the Darkness	n/a
The Lion and the Logic Not yet published (Probable image)	n/a

Timelines Universe (short stories, novellae, novels)

Book	DAZ3D (original) Cover	MidJourney Cover
The Reason
A Fox in the Henhouse
A Dragon in the Foie Gras
A Huntress on the Rocks
The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Note: The MidJourney image was generated by me, but "cleaned up" by my friend Geoff Edwards, who's better at such things than I am.)
The Tale of the Crane Princess (Note: This cover was originally generated by my friend Geoff Edwards; it was my first MidJ cover, so there is no DAZ3D version. I did the lettering, and the Japanese caption says "Tsuruhime Monogatari", which translates directly to the English title of the book.)	(n/a)
The Dragon's Sister	(n/a)
An American in Iya The Japanese caption says "Iya no kome kokujin", which translates more or less directly to the English title of the book, though I prefer to pronounce "kome kokujin" as "amerikajin" in this case.	(n/a)
On Account of a Dame	(n/a)
All Precious Stones and Peoples (Note: This book has not been completed or released, so the cover, while likely final, still may change slightly.)	(n/a)