So I thought it might be fun to post a piece from start to finish, let you get to know the way I work and the ridiculous amount of process there is!
Well first, I had the assignment. This was an independent assignment, not for any sort of client, so I decided to do a poster for a song on I Monster's new album "A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars". If you don't know who they are, here's the song that inspired the poster:
Sorry about it cutting off, but the video isn't important since it's just a picture of the album cover. It's the music that matters anyway!
The next step was the sketch. I actually had another sketch in blue pen on some scrap of lined paper, but I can't seem to find it so I'll have to omit that sketch. The next step was the preliminary sketch to get my ideas down.
The idea stems from the eye in the center (emblazoned with "I") on a two-faced fly monster in a suit. This was inspired by the cover of Neveroddoreven, I Monster's previous album cover.
The things in the hands are a CFL bulb on the left and a candle on the right, relating the candle to the old psychedelic style and the CFL to the new electronic style that are both present in I Monster's music. I was thinking a semi-Alphonse Mucha, semi-psychedelic feel so I put together a comp based on some Mucha-esque imagery and an old I Monster album cover (though in this comp, they're covered up by my own imagery).
My next step was to get down the linework. I printed my comp large-size and traced it onto some illustration board. Just to get it down, I used a brush pen, thinner Microns, and black paint.
Following this, it was onto PAINT. I used acrylic and glazing medium to have the linework show through some. However, I did have to go over a lot of my lines, but this process is awesome because not all my lines show through which I think is a really cool effect.
This is the sort of junky scan and un-refined painted image. I don't always make a point in my work to make the actual real media image the final step, in fact it makes it a lot easier if I don't. Finally, I used the computer to adjust colors, move some stuff around for composition (namely the "I, MONSTER" text) and add the text at the bottom.
And then squeedily deedily, you're all set with a final image!
Hope you enjoyed my PROCESS, it took as long as you thought it did, but DAMN was it worth it!
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