Turn The Radio Up And Throw My Ashes Out The Window

So, I am going to do something I haven't done in a long time, and that is do a process post about the new Type album cover i did for Matthew Mitchell. The only real art direction I got (which is a lot, considering the client) was that "Mitch" just wanted a closed-in shot of his face half-decayed. Needless to say, this was right up my alley.

After spending almost a month figuring this thing out and finally getting it on paper, I was extremely happy with the inks. So there lies a problem; how can I not fuck it up with color? This has been a struggle of mine for years, and i finally now feel like I am actually getting a hold of it.

First I laid the flat colors down, nothing too fancy here. For some reason I felt that this was really going in the right direction, even though it was no different from what I normally do. Now looking back it was probably the satisfaction of making a layer folder called "dead-eye".

I then did a few multiply layers for the "dead" sections of the face. I did this the same way I used to ink templates for color, but digitally (if you don't know what I am talking about, go back a few months in my posts). I had a hell of a time picking out what "dead" colors would be. trying to get a good balance of green, blue, and grey.

So, let's forget about the dead side of the face for a minute. I knew I wanted to have four variations in every color; a flat middle tone, deep shadow, light shadow, and highlight. I have done this on the last few images I have done, and been rather pleased with the results. I laid out each template layer in a separate color, using the same "ink template" that I was just talking about and used layer opacities to see where I was going. Doing color templates like this kills my hand on a wacom, and I wish I could just do it with ink but quite frankly I can't afford using 15 sheets of paper for every fucking drawing.

The first color layer I put in was the light shadow, just to round out the features and to give myself an idea of where to go next. ( I became obsessed with the chin a little bit)

Now I added the deep shadow (making sure it wasn't TOO deep) and the highlights. Basically the main colors were done.

I laid the "dead face" layer folder back over to see how it was going, and finished up the glasses frames.

This is always my favorite part, and is made better by CS3. I laid in some circles under the eyes, and rosed up the real fleshy parts of the face. It looks really pink here, but thats because I knew I was going to desaturated the entire image with a hue overlay in the end. I also threw in some white highlights to make a few parts pop (I hate that term..."pop"...makes me cringe everytime an art director says it).

I then threw down the overlay gradients; browns, blues, and whites to fill everything out a little more. These are all controlled by different layers of opacity for multiply, screen, and lighten layers.

Finally I put in the lenses of the glasses. I saved these for last because I knew that dulling the colors around the eyes was going to change the image a lot, and I wanted to make sure everything was in place before I put the lenses in. And as I mentioned in the last post, I LOVE DRAWING HIGHLIGHTS IN GLASSES LENSES! And to top the whole thing off, I laid a blue hue layer over everything to desaturated some of the brighter colors.

This may in fact be the best thing I have done in years. Initially John and Mitch wanted me to do a back cover for the album, with the back of Mitch's head. But after finishing this, I realized that nothing I could do on the back would come close to matching the front and it would just be overshadowed in the end. Everyone agreed to just keep the front cover and add nothing else. I still can't look at this thing without beaming. I can't wait to see it run off on a 12" record sleeve.

And now all I can do is hope that the next thing that I end up doing even comes close to this.

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In other news, Alex from Head Bang Image ( a salon in Chicago) asked me to think of some ideas for their new store. The whole look of the place is an odd mix of glam and modern rock n' roll...not the easiest things to work with without making everything look cliche and overdone. So far I whipped up these two roughs. I am super pleased with how the girl turned out, but really need to work on how the text lays on her head to make it look more "shaved in". And the text on the bottom one is just atrocious, and if I ended up doing this one for the final I would absolutely be hand drawing the hair. I still can't stand how hair looks done with a wacom, on my work or anyone else's.

I am a busy little beaver, and only have 3 days before I climb on a bus to southern Indiana. I can't believe how much I have gotten done in the last few weeks.