thumbnails for children's book front cover

[Charlottesketch]

my project is a series of children's book covers. Here's a rough preview of the first book i've illustrated. (ignore area with the blanked out title).



I thinking of doing something similar for the 2nd book cover, because its part of a series. I've been looking at the popular Beast Quest series as inspiration for my book.

Although i've been really struggling to find a layout that works.

I needed the front cover to feature
-huge tree on a planet with a creature perched ontop
-and the spaceship with the main characters



Maybe i'm trying to fit too many things into one picture, but i don't feel like any of my ideas are working. Is there any advice you could give me on my rough thumbnails? how do these ideas look and how can I make this better?

[Psychotime]

I think the sixth one works, but the third could work too, if you can get away with not putting the main characters on it, and do something about where the title will be positioned. Maybe you can put the main characters in the background. Either way, I think the focal point should be the creature on the tree.

The rest have the main characters positioned to look too much like the first cover.

I think the fourth thumbnail makes for a better version of the first cover, honestly.

[Elwell]

As it is, #2 with the bed/ship seen slightly from below instead of head on, or #4, flopped. Do more variations on both of those. And more in general.

[Charlottesketch]

Thanks for the help I have some more iv'e been working on,

[Psychotime]

I'm liking the new #3, but I'm not so sure the waves parting around the tree like that make any sense. It looks nice, but it no longer looks like the tree spends most of the time ABOVE water.

You should listen to Elwell about more variations. I'm not sure you did enough.