Prompt
A steam locomotive racing toward a desert canyon bridge with riders in pursuit. 2026 trade-cover trend: oversized structural typography, high-contrast palette, strong readability at thumbnail size. All cover text must be Chinese only; render the quoted title and author name in correct, complete simplified Chinese characters. Book cover with title "西域快车" and author name "陆知非" rendered on the cover.. Workflow direction: Create the finished flat front-cover artwork itself, not a photograph or mockup of a physical book. The rectangular front cover must fill the entire output canvas edge to edge, viewed perfectly straight-on with the camera perpendicular to the artwork. Build one compelling genre-appropriate key image on a single strong subject in a single scene — never a collage of competing motifs. Follow the 2026 trade-cover direction: oversized structural title typography treated as part of the artwork and placed where the chosen style directs — top, side, vertical, or integrated into the artwork, not always a top banner; a high-contrast palette; an author name placed deliberately and secondary to the title; short correctly rendered title text in the requested language enclosed in quotation marks; and a silhouette that stays readable at 100-pixel thumbnail size in a two-second scroll, all with trim-safe breathing room.
Style-specific direction:
Style: vintage 1960s-70s pulp paperback cover; energetic gouache illustration with visible halftone print texture, aged paper ground, and honest print-registration imperfections.
Subject: preserve the requested character, machine, creature, or event as one melodramatic high-point scene told at a single glance — bold gesture, exaggerated perspective, maximum drama without gore.
Composition: portrait front-cover layout with a poster-scale focal moment and deliberate empty band for the title block; strong thumbnail silhouette.
Lighting or Color: limited vintage ink palette — vermilion red, mustard yellow, ink blue over cream paper — with dramatic cast shadows and printed-dot shading.
Typography: render the exact quoted title once in a heavy slab-serif or bold condensed vintage display face and the exact quoted author once in smaller spaced type; keep both crisp and correctly spelled.
Output format: flat front-cover artwork only, filling the canvas edge to edge and viewed perfectly straight-on; no physical book object, gore, photographic realism, spine, pages, back cover, perspective, mockup, badge, logo, watermark, or duplicated text.. Avoid: physical book, 3D book, book mockup, product mockup, spine, pages, page edges, back cover, perspective view, angled cover, tabletop, pedestal, hands holding a book, room scene, drop shadow around the cover, misspelled title, crowded typography, weak focal point, busy collage of competing motifs, washed-out low contrast, text too close to edges, unrelated imagery, garbled author name, misspelled or duplicated title, misspelled author, photorealism, digital gloss, gore, modern minimalist layout, mockup, spine, watermark
