Oneironauts 2 Cover

So I had a grandiose idea about the cover of the second Oneironauts. It was going to involve nice cameras and paint in water. Unfortunately I couldn't muster a fish tank for the photos, so it turned out out to be only a dream...

It was at this point that I decided to take matters into my own hands. I fired up GIMP yesterday and came up with the following. It likely won't be the final draft of the cover, but it's a big step in the right direction. I'm going to try and finish everything tomorrow (interior included) and order a proof. If everything looks good, I'm going to publish These Apparitions next week. Until then, enjoy the cover. Please comment with any feedback.

FYI: the word count for this book is about 97,000 words. It will be 344 pages (not including front and back material).

Update (6.16.15): I've finished the interior. The chapter names took quite a while. Luckily I learned some good lessons from my first time around so creating the interior was a fairly smooth process. I also posted my cover on an authors' forum and have gotten some feedback which I'll be implementing.

Update 2 (6.18.15): The final cover is nearly complete. I just need to get a picture of my own model (as I don't have rights to the one I used). I'm in talks with some people right now, Hopefully I'll have the shots before the end of the week.

Update 3 (6.19.15): I ended up just using myself as the model for the cover. I would have preferred someone else, but meh. I can change it later if I want. I spent all day yesterday doing the eBook for book 2 and fixing the eBook for book 1. My proof is on the way, so it should be published next week! Anyway, here's the final cover:

The Oneironauts Cover Art!

There won't be much in the way of sageness with this post; it's mainly to reveal the cover art that I've produced for The Oneironauts book 1. It took less than a day and I had to go through several iterations, but I came up with a cover art that I'm fairly satisfied with. I'm in the process of querying agents, and if I get a real publisher then they'll pay a real artist to do the cover. But just in case I decide to self publish, I'm prepared! Here it is:

Isn't it glorious? Now, I'm not really an artist. I can't produce anything aesthetic with a pencil. But I do know what I think looks good and I know how to Google things. I made this using GIMP 2.8 and Google. If you're interested, this is the picture that inspired my cover. Feedback would be appreciated, seeing as I can still change things. Tell me what you think!

Here's my first draft for comparison:

Oh, and for those of you who don't know, oneironaut is a word of Greek origin and of the same form as astronaut. Astronaut is Greek for star sailor. Oneironaut is Greek for dream sailor. My book is therefore about people who explore the dream plane.

(Edit 6/26/2015) I figured I might as well throw up the actual cover art :)