So, what's the last movie you saw, be it in the cinema or at home?

I can't seem to remember my last movie... Maybe Witches, based on the Roald Dahl book, but I'm not sure. It feels like a very long time since I last watched a movie. 

...I just found out I'm watching the concept artist of Oz the Great and Powerful on DeviantArt. http://michaelkutsche.deviantart.com/ I just watched him because I thought his art was cool, and then those Oz pic's showed up.  Since I'm learning how to make Concept Art myself I'm more than happy to see some official Concept Art appearing on DeviantArt. 

btw, anyone going to watch Oz, The Great and Powerful when it comes out? The trailer looks great, but I'm afraid the story will be bad. (Just like Burton's Alice In Wonderland: great looks, bad story).

@Saphira: Haha, I like your interpretation of Lockheart 
Anyway, the examples you give of covers with faces are indeed quite good. I don't really like the first, but it's nice that it's at least quite different from most face-covers.  The cover of Wicked Lovely I don't really count as a face cover, since the attention goes to the hands and the flower, not to the face. The third I do like too, because it seems like a (digitally) painted face and therefore I can easily imagine it is specially made to fit the story.
I guess I agree with Nienna on that  point (no photographs on fantasy-books )

@Nienna: I agree with you on the serie-covers. It's one of the reasons I like the covers of the Inheritance books by Paolini. And it's the main reason that I don't like the newest book-covers of Terry Pratchett's book. I mean; they're quite nice, but they are very different of the first books!

As for The Hobbit, I prefer this version:

or, even better, the one that is illustrated by Alan Lee (a GREAT artist!)

I agree on Brisingr, nice colour combination!
And inaccuracy with the story annoys me too. I've got these books, The Black Magician Trilogy, and the characters on the covers don't even closely resemble the ones in the book!

In my opinion, actual human faces (photographs) don't have a place on the covers of fantasy books that are set in another (non-contemporary) world. For dystopian novels and paranormal contemporary novels, I don't care as much, but most fantasy books have this old atmosphere that I feel is ruined with photography. However, Saphira, I think in your examples the face works quite well I'm not that sure about Shadowfell, because I know Juliet Marillier's stories and they're almost always fairytale-like, in which case I don't think photographs work for me...

Terry Pratchett's covers are among my favourites as well, they're so chaotic and colourful and I think they really represent the way Pratchett writes (strange characters, lots of weird stuff happening... At the start of the book, you're looking at the cover and think: what does this all mean? But then, at the end, you look back and suddenly recognize the whole story on the cover!)
I think the Harry Potter children's edition covers (the original ones) are also very good. I remember thinking as a child: why write such a wonderful story and have such ugly drawn covers? But now, looking back, the childish drawings represents how it all began: as some sort of children's story So these covers are mainly my favourites for reasons of nostalgia.

Further favourites of mine:

I love it when the covers of books in a series go along well together. I think this is one nice example.


Big fan of less is more, which makes me like this covers. Two of three I haven't even read yet. (But An abundance of Katherines is on my to-read list: it's about a boy that only falls in love with girls named Katherine).

And last but not least:

I like this cover because it's so sketchy. Also, look at the others in this series: all sketchy, but the cloaked figure seems to get closer. Since I haven't read the books yet, such facts really make me curious.

As you might tell from my story above, yes, I do judge books by their cover. They are what makes a story stand out when you're browsing in a book store, so I think good covers are very important. However, most books have nice covers, so while the cover may not always grab your attention to just buy the book and read it straight away, the text on the backside may. But yes, sometimes I buy books solely for their nice covers. I even do this with cds.
Also, when there are multiple editions available, I always look for the one with the nicest cover.

Four... Yeah, I certainly love him! Though I must say I liked him more in Divergent (acting all tough and teacherly all the time) than in Insurgent, but still, love the guy!

Edit: Also, have you read The Inheritance by Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm? It's a collection of stories and I really liked them