This plugin gives the look of a magazine-style website with thumbnails and excerpts in a clean layout. Thumbnails are generated automatically, and there is a settings page to set an unholy amount of options. (Really, it’s out of control and I’m sorry.) The latest release also has a “featured post” add-on so you can specify any post you want or just the most recent one to be put in the featured post box. You can also add a css popup for the image that includes the post title and 
Are you using Thesis from DIYThemes.com? Easily place your Recent Visual Posts by simply inserting your desired Thesis hook on the settings page. No code changes needed.
This plugin uses a slightly modified version of the excellent Image Extractor plugin found at <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/image-extractor/" rel="ugc">wordpress.org/extend/plugins/image-extractor/</a>.
<h3>I need more help!</h3>
Make sure you check out the <a href="http://oktober5.com/visual-recent-posts-plugin/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin homepage</a>. If you need my help, check out the <a href="http://oktober5.com/forums/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin forums</a>

Visual Recent Posts

Displays your recent posts with auto-generated thumbnails and excerpts; also includes a featured post and popup box option.

Sovit Tamrakar

Ghanshyam Khanal

Plugin for featured wordpress posts. This is a cool plugin that makes it easier to mark posts as featured posts (not using specific categories) and simple markup to show theme from your theme file.
Add <code><?php query_posts($query_string."&featured=yes"); ?></code> before the post loop starts and manage the featured posts from the post edit list.
Now added widget for listing featured post in sidebar widgets with custom number of post.
Supports Custom Post Type
Visit us on <a href="https://github.com/ssovit/featured-post" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a> to support and donate

Featured Post

I love this plugin. It's simple, small and easy to modify. Best of all, it has a simple interface for end-users.

NOTE: You may wish to download the plugin from the GitHub link in the description. This one is at version 3.2.1 but the GitHub one is at version 3.5. Works great on WordPress 4.6.1!

Visual Recent Posts vs Featured Post