Animé Custom Cover project?

[DarrienEmerald]

With the prevalence of digital downloads upon us, I've been wanting some kind of way to store my digital episodes with my official DVD/BD collection.  I've been working out a template (with a color-coded system based directly off of Lumberjack's wonderful PC-Engine colored bars) for not only my downloaded episodes, but my original discs as well (I'm a freak for uniformity...).  I don't know if anyone else here even really cares one way or the other, but I figured I'd post what I've come up with so far, and just see what kind of ideas might come up.

A general collection of everything I've made so far:


And a more direct look at a single case (in this case, an expanded 14-Disc case to hold the individual Dragon Ball Z movies):


Again, just throwing it up to get some ideas of some sort, and to see if this benefits anyone other than myself, as I can upload them to my Box if so, and if not, can just continue working on them silently.

[scarmullet]

I like it. Gives kind of a standardization for covers.

How about a blurb on the bottom describing the genre of the show/movie?

[DarrienEmerald]

Not a bad idea, would remove a little of the "extra space" below the third screenshot, which I've never really been a big fan of.  Also, been throwing around the idea of having a small section at the bottom of the spine, in the same color as the "type" bar, that gives the year whatever show started in (i.e., the Gundam Wing box listing 1995, while the original series would list 1979... the DBZ Movie Saga box *may* have enough room to list the full time span, 1989-1995)

[Kuroi1986]

I like this idea. Will be waiting for a template 

[amarthar]

Like the idea, like the front and spine of the template. The back is kinda iffy, particularly the image in the background stands out a bit too much, also the box with the info on the bottom looks a little to big. I'd recommend one kinda like here: http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/375903/front/paprika-2006-r1

Would you mind if I used some of your ideas in my One Piece and Tenchi Universe cases?

[DarrienEmerald]

Okay, sorry for not replying sooner.  Between E3 and finally buying a new sketchpad to play around in... I got a little sidetracked.   Everything I've done is going up on my Box right now (link in signature), including the current template, with the exception of two covers because they contain some NSFW parts, and I know really know how Box or here deals with that.  However, I am going to try to play around with the template itself tonight, seeing what I can do with the suggestions you guys have made.  Re-sizing the "properties" box is going to be the most difficult, I think, simply because all the images I've used so far are specifically used to fit the current format, so I'll potentially will have to redo the back of all the covers if that happens.  I am also not yet putting up the two Kamen Rider Decade covers, because while looking at them today, I decided I wanted to create another "series type" color just for Tokusatsu stuff. 

With the "finished" covers that are going up, I removed alot of text from them, mainly the disc count, languages (all and spoken), resolution, source, and extras, because these aren't necessarily going to be standard for everyone.  The fonts used in the template itself are Lithos Pro for the # of Discs, Broadcast/Release Dates, Series Type, and "Volume Title" if needed (for BLEACH, Dragon Ball/Z, etc.).  Otherwise, all text used is MoolBoran (14pt for the series description, and 19pt for the "properties" box).  Not sure if these fonts are generic Windows ones or not, but if not, let me know and I can upload them somewhere I'm sure. 

There are a few of the "finished" covers I'm not completely happy with for various reasons, but I simply could not find any other images of decent resolution to use.  The most annoying ones, in my opinion, would have to be _summer (had to use an image from the game and not the show...), the original Pretty Cure (just...really basic), and Gundam ZZ (I think the shows are more about the characters, so I hate using just the ZZ Gundam, but I can't find anything of good quality from the show that uses official artwork at a high enough resolution).  Also, I have been trying to use official art for all of the covers, with currently only three exceptions that I can remember.  The Dragon Ball GT back cover uses some fan-art of Pan, simply because GT-era pictures seemed especially difficult to find in quality; the DBZ Specials covers also uses Budokai Tenkaichi renders for both Bardock and Trunks.  I had wanted to make something similiar to the Special Selection DVD that recently released in Japan, but... yeah.  The third is on the currently unreleased Kamen Rider Decade cover, which shamelessly currently uses a fan-made wallpaper that also regrettably includes the logo as well.  I have attempted to not have any logos or text in the main cover image, but that one as well as 6 Angels didn't leave my any choice at the time of their making.

Custom logos were made for Futari wa Pretty Cure, Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, and Fresh PreCure.  I am planning at some point to go back an make a custom logo for Astalotte's Toy, which currently uses the cheap cop-out method of pasting text OVER the logo...  Any of these logos, or future logos I may make, that you want, just let me know and I'd be more than happy to upload them.  Not really expecting anyone to want them, but you never know...

Also, to amarthar and anyone else that has asked/wants to know, feel free to use the template for anything, and in any amount.  If you want to slice and dice it and make it into something unique, go for it.  This is all mainly for my own personal collection, so it doesn't bother me at all how it gets used.  Rather, it'd make me immensely happy to see what other people could do with it, as I had pretty much just settled on something that "worked," more or less.

One last thing, I keep everything I use to make these covers, with maybe the exception of the random screen capture here or there.  If anyone wants the specific template for a particular cover, let me know and I can upload it easily enough.  Just a small word of warning, I didn't really "standardize" the template until today to upload it, so they are a bit of mess as far as the layers go.

EDIT: Okay, everything I've done with the exception of the two Kamen Rider Decade covers is up on my Box.  While it was uploading, I have played with the template some, and have been making progress.  Hopefully I can share the updated version very shortly, as long as I don't get sidetracked again...

[amarthar]

Well, I'm certainly interested in your covers, since I'm a huge anime & toku nerd (aside from being a gaming nerd).

PS: Check your PM.

BTW: .hack//SIGN - awesome, .hack//LoT - meh...

[DarrienEmerald]

Hm.. as far as Genre tags go... I'm at a bit of loss on how/what to incorporate.  Obviously AniDB gives a wide and varied selection of tags I could use, but it seems really excessive to put all of them on there, even if I narrow it down to just the category ones.  I'm thinking I'd really like to keep it simple, maybe two to three tags for each show. 

Mecha, Magical Girl, Kodomo, Shônen, Shôjo, Josei, Seinen, Everyday (slice of life), Comedy, Sports, Supernatrual... I don't know, it's just a very vague idea.  Any ideas?

Also, I've manage to drastically shrink down the "property" box, to the point where it is much more manageable, and no longer goes entirely across the bottom of the back (the old panel was 1588x668, while the new panel is just 1208x121).  I was wondering, should I include some kind of age-rating on the bottom right corner, something like ESRB ratings?  It would kind of eliminate a few of the genre tags I was choosing, but fill in the space relatively nicely, I think.  Good or bad idea?

[DarrienEmerald]

Okay, after a fair bit of tinkering, I've come up with this so far...


Front hasn't changed a bit.  Spine has gotten the added "Year" bar at the bottom, but no other changes.  Then you get to the back... yeah.  Don't really know what to think about it myself.  Used the 3D tools in CS5 to turn the screenshots, creating a 3 image "collage" rather than the standard/plain vertical bar.  The much, much smaller "properties" box is placed underneath the images, and the broadcast/release date bar is at the very bottom, slightly resized to match the size of the "year" bar on the spine.  The background image is what really throws me off.  Right now, it's just a generic background off of Google Images, but it does kind of fit.  I do miss having Lacus on the background, and I was trying to find ways to incorporate the image back in, but without some drastic drastic drastic editing, the entire background would end up multiple colors of pink, which personally I have no issue with color-wise, but it really doesn't fit on a Gundam-related cover, I think.  (Also, bear no mind the mismatch-ness of the the cover, as I was just throwing pieces together into the template, which has the 08th MS Team stuff as a guide.) 

Still haven't figured out how/what I want to do with the genres idea, so it is still missing, as well as any possible age rating system...  Let me know what you think, and help me out with some ideas if you can, it'd be a tremendous help.

[amarthar]

With the genres, you could go with the most prevalent ones. Like for Gundam  I would go with "Mecha, Action, Drama" or "Sci-Fi, Action, Drama", for .hack//SIGN "Sci-Fi, Drama", etc.

As for ratings, you could put them somewhere that won't leave an empty space when disabled, like bottom of the spine just above the year.

[DarrienEmerald]

Okay, third version now, but I'm actually pretty happy with this one...


Just the back, as there have been no changes to the front or spine.  I'm thinking against age ratings now, even though I brought it up, because they have always seemed a little silly to me.  Comparing to the ESRB again, what's so bad about Final Fantasy XIII that I shouldn't play it when I'm twelve and have to wait an additional year?  Have they seen what is on TV, readily available right now?  So, for now at least, I'm not liking it... though, if wanted, I can still throw it in the template, I just won't be making any personal use of it.  Was thinking, perhaps using modified versions of the PEGI ratings, since they are number based already, and making the background just a solid color...

Anyways, the back.  The previous one was just so... minimalistic, that it annoyed me more and more each time I looked at it.  So, thanks to amarthar, I found a nice vectored image of Lacus and restored her to the background.  Reformatted the text to allow you to actually see her (otherwise, it'd have no point of having on there in the first place, the major issue with template 1), which also required adjusting the images and "properties" box.   Slid the images all the way to the bottom, just a tiny bit above the broadcast/release bar, and then rotated the "properties" to the top left corner.  A little unorthodox, perhaps, but I liked the way it came out.

I added the Genre tag to the "properties" box, with relative room for three genres per show, which I figured would be more than enough.  The first attempt was too long, and overlapped the left screen capture, so I had to go back and shrink it down some.  Now, if you have versions of a show from a remastered release, there used to be room to put it in the "Source" box (i.e., R1 remastered DVD).  However, it made the box really large if you did not (i.e., R1 DVD), so that was the one that shrunk down for the genre box to fit.  There isn't any room left to specifically mark a source as a remastered set now, at least fully (currently, it lists R2 r DVD for the image, to somewhat signify the remastering).  It did also cut down on the space for subtitle tracks... but I don't really know too many releases that have more than one language subtitled anyways.

Also, I should note that Imandix shows a little bit of overlap, as in the spine running over to the back or the front running into the spine.  I'm not quite sure why.  I've printed out several as a test (back when the template was mainly black... my poor, poor ink cartridges...), and had no issue with any overlap. 

At this point, other than adding the age stuff to the side, if wanted, I think it's pretty much ready.  Somewhat both looking forward and not looking forward to adjusting my covers to it, but it'll be an adventure, at least.  Let me know, good? Bad?

[scarmullet]

Looking good, will a Blu-ray variant be comming?

[zakurowrath]

Looks very interesting, I actually had to create a cover for my fansubbed Tokyo Mew Mew collection myself, keep up the great work. 

[DarrienEmerald]

Okay, last major update before the weekend.  This is debuting the "finished" template, as well as the new "Tokusatsu Series" coloring:


Now, each color type (TV, OVA, Movie, TV Special, H-OVA, and Tokusatsu) have been converted to the new style, and the nice pretty background image will change colors to match the overall color of the type (admittedly, Movie's background is a little more Orange than Brown, but I blame that on Photoshop's Hue control...).  I've uploaded the new template to my box, in a .rar file that explains how to create the screenshots in Photoshop CS5... I'm not sure how to do so on other programs, mainly because I've never had a reason to use them, but if you do, let me know and I'll add it into the Instructions file.  So far, I've updated two covers to this format, the previewed Kamen Rider Decade, and Gundam SEED, both of which are also up on my Box.  Going to work on more updates over the weekend, but I'll probably be away from the 'net for a little bit, unless my parent's have gotten the internet running at the beach house. 

As far as a Blu-ray version...  I'll look over it, see what I can do about it.  Real estate becomes a major problem sometimes, something I learned real fast when trying to make a Final Fantasy XIII 20th Anniversary cover to match shenske's PS1/2 collection.  Also... I just realized as I was typing this out that I don't have a color type for Web series... so I'll probably figure something out for that over the weekend too.

So, yeah, tl;dr, new template is out, a minor update is still left for it (adding Web Series as an option), and I'll be working on covers all weekend maybe without internet. 

[scarmullet]

Here is Azumanga Daioh


https://www.box.com/s/dd8812f495c6677a731a