Design a captivating ebook cover for a horror novel titled: "Valley of the Shadow of Death".

Author Name: CJ Hogan

I need a book cover design for a horror novel. The novel has an occult theme with a military setting.
The title of the novel is: "Valley of the Shadow of Death".

The cover should suggest/indicate horror content, however it should not be too graphic.

keywords:
atmospheric, haunting, mysterious, eerie, foreboding...

I have 2 ideas for the design:

***[Below I am attaching a bunch of links to images that are relevant to my ideas, and my comments about them. You can look at these images for guidance, or you can use your own creativity].

IDEA 1. Footprints in the forest:
-a wintry, desolate looking forest. Trees should be brittle, icy, very tall, thin. The forest should be dense with trees.
-forest could be shrouded in a low mist
-a dirt track/path running through the center of the forest.
-no snow, but maybe frost on the ground.
-sky: it is night. so the sky can be pure black... or a twilight kind of purple, or a spooky dark blue.
-footprints: there should be footprints [shoe-prints] in the dirt path. [boot-prints, not bare feet]. The imprints can be in the mud, or they can be in frost.
-perspective: point of view [POV] is not aerial (i.e. not looking down). instead, POV is at the ground, low level. imagine you are a dog, standing on the path, looking at this scene... so you should feel dwarfed,
intimidated by the forest around you.
-there are 2 sets of footprints. The main set [F1] is going straight up the center of the path. The second set [F2] is coming at an angle, is coming out from the right hand side of the forest, and then converges with F1 at the middle of the path.
-after the two sets of footprints meet, from this point forward, there should only be 1 set of footprints. Also, from this point on, there should be a small trail of droplets of blood [not a lot... just noticeable].
-so the viewer can't know, if F2 is helping or hurting F1.
-INSPIRATION: see the famous poem 'Footprints in the sand'. [e.g.
http://www.quotessays.com/images/fo…otes-1.jpg
This cover should be a twist on that poem. The cover should suggest [subtly] that F2 is creeping up on F1 and has hurt/killed F1 ...[actually it is the opposite... but it should suggest horror].
-IMPORTANT: the footprints should be the focal point. The forest is just background. Our eye should be drawn to the footsteps immediately.
-OPTIONAL: in the distant background, the view of very steep slopes of a valley [on both left and right sides]. Should be dramatic, breath-taking, dominating...
-OPTIONAL: Venus/morning star visible in the night sky (glowing red) e.g.
/http://annesastronomynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Venus1.jpg [like this, but smaller...] /OR/
http://images.fineartamerica.com/im…s-nasa.jpg

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IDEA 2:
-various pairs of eyes, in rows, on the front cover. something like:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped…livess.JPG
-however, the eyes should be spaced apart a little [maybe the words of the title could be between each pair of eyes], and the eyes should be superimposed onto the forest background [as per Idea #1], and slightly blended in [at the edges]
-another example: http://anitasnotebook.com/bookcover…-Cover.jpg [these eyes are spaced apart OK]
-ideally 5 pairs of eyes, minimum 3 for this idea to work
-an idea might be to keep the forest background black & white or 'xray' so that it doesn't clash with the eyes.
-each pair of eyes belongs to a different character
-each character is showing a different emotion
-in each character's eyes, there is a different reflection of an important object in one of their pupils

-LAYOUT: from the top of the cover, might be something like this: Valley of > eyes 1 > the Shadow > eyes 2 > of Death > eyes 3 > no text > eyes 4 > tag line > eyes 5 > author name.

DESCRIPTION OF EYES:
EYES 1:
-emotion: despair
-gender: male
-colouring: red hair [eyebrows], green eyes, pale skin
-reflection in eyes: the shadow of a black dog, with its ears cocked /OR/ an inverted cross. Eyes here can be bloodshot
-looking in direction: left or right
EYES 2:
-emotion: shock/surprise
-gender: female [main character - should be beautiful]
-colouring: blonde hair [eyebrows], blue eyes
-reflection in eyes: a tiny flame
-looking in direction: opposite direction to eyes 1
EYES 3:
-emotion: hate [demonic / possessed]
-gender: male
-colouring: eyes could be yellow or red or white, with black circles around the eyes...
-reflection in eyes: A shining silver coin
-looking in direction: Centre [i.e. looking at you]
EYES 4:
-emotion: anger/determination/fearlessness
-gender: male [supporting character - should be rugged and masculine]
-colouring: black hair [eyebrows], brown eyes
-reflection in eyes: a monstrous man clad in black flames /OR/ the shadow of a tall, burly man holding a pickaxe
-looking in direction: same direction as eyes 2
EYES 5:
-emotion: fear/terror
-gender: female
-colouring: brown/auburn/chestnut hair [eyebrows], hazel eyes
-reflection in eyes: the silhouette of Asmodeus [a huge monster with 3 heads - a bull, a man, and a ram]
-looking in direction: opposite direction to eyes 4

###

FONT:
-type of font, and placement of title/name, is up to you.
-tagline to be confirmed...
-the font should be strong, professional, vivid, appropriate for horror
-I particularly like flaming fonts / burning fonts [flame is a significant theme in the book]

*** PLEASE SEE ATTACHED NOTEPAD FILE FOR LINKS TO IMAGERY IDEAS***

This book will be published with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The cover should conform to industry standard dimensions for ebooks.

Image requirements:
-See here:
-https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2J0TRG6OPX0VM

From the KDP website:
-Kindle Direct Publishing accepts two types of files for cover images:
JPEG, or .jpeg
TIFF, or .tif(f)
KDP applies additional compression to images when displaying them on its website. For best results, please upload your images with minimal compression.
Dimensions
Requirements for the size of your cover art have an ideal height/width ratio of 1.6, this means:
• A minimum of 625 pixels on the shortest side and 1000 pixels on the longest side
• For best quality, your image would be 2820 pixels on the shortest side and 4500 pixels on the longest side
Important: We cannot accept any image larger than 10,000 pixels on the longest side.]

The cover should look good as a full-sized image, but also as a thumbnail, since Amazon shows thumbnail cover images in search results.

NB:
-Please only use licensed material you have purchased or created yourself. Please declare where you took your pictures from. Please respect copyright laws.

-This is the first contest I have run, so unfortunately I cannot blind the contest.

-This is an ebook only cover, so spine and back cover design are not needed at this time.

-Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your submissions. Any questions, please contact me. Good luck!