Ol' Drake- a talented death metal guitarist and son of progressive guitarist Tony Drake asked me to do cover art to a demo album, as they used me before on their their EP (a very simple smokey skull) Though I am not the biggest heavy metal fan, these guys are extremely good, very professional... their demos sound better than 20-year old experienced band 's studio albums.
Anyway, In the beginning Ol' wanted a dark landscape with fire- a hell without people.... then a John Carpenter's `The Thing' -like creature started to be discussed. Later upon doing digital color sketches (no pencil this time (which is a first)), Ol's view drifted into a less fiery, more of a monster type of image. After doing a dragon for his dad, I tried to stay clear of that visual and go with a wormy infested creature. At first we talked about a fighter and dead bodies all over the place. I initially drew in torture devices, corpses and zombies in pain, but we went with one figure... in a dramatic pose. The girl could be a sacrifice or summoning the beast... it's up to the viewer. Ol' wanted the image dark, so I simplified the foreground... hence the whole image didn't have too much texture.
As for the girl, I'm not a big fan on nudity... I consider clothing much more interesting than the nude figure, but the pose is dramatic and I had fun with the lighting. Due to the resizing and compression, the reflection looks a tad weird, but uncompressed and un-resized (hey, a new word), it is correct.
This image is only 15% of the original which is huge.
For any who cares or wonders, this above image has a different band logo. During the EP creation days, I did a rough logo and the band liked it, and they wanted to make it the final- calling it hardcore and plain. I pleaded to them to NOT use, as it wasn't balanced (it was a rough), and was a boring flat color (which did not reflect the band (boring these guys are NOT)). I changed it a bit, but it is difficult to see with this compression and resized.
Evile has been signed by a major label and has moved on to the road of success. I feel privileged that in a minute way, I humbly helped them to that next step in their career. Cheers.
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