some more sketches and ideas

Here's a few more sketches for my album cover project. This first upload is my final idea for my back cover; keeping to the urban theme of the original album and my front cover i wanted it to be more simple in contrast to the front cover which is heavily photoshopped and has a lot going on. It's basically a photograph of a painted line on a road surface which will probably be shot in the same car park as my front cover...

This next sketch is of the insert/leaflet that will feature notes on the band, selected lyrics and quotes. It will be an accordion-style fold out piece of card. For the design printed in the background i am going to go for either a top down view of a double yellow line in the road, various restrictive road signs or a top down view of my guitar placed on a road/tarmac surface. Again these are all urban themed and i will use post processing in photoshop to give them all a contrasty, edgy look similar to that in the screenshots from the Bittersweet Symphony video i posted earlier on my blog.

ideas no. 2

After sketching some more ideas while listening to the album i have come up with a refined idea for the main cover! here it is!

As it's pretty rough i will describe it. The scene is a carpark, probably a multi-story somewhere in Basildon.  I will set up a tripod and take photos of me in different positions and outfits and pose as if i am interacting with each copy of myself. The two in the center will be fighting each other while the rest watch, either cheering it on, ignoring or trying to break it up. This basically will describe the internal conflicts of modern life, a common theme of the album.

Now to figure out how to do it...

more lyrics

 The Drugs Don't Work lyrics

All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down

And I hope you're thinking of me
As you lay down on your side
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again


Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again


But I know I'm on a losing streak
'Cause I passed down my old street
And if you wanna show, then just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again


Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again


'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead


All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down


Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again


'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead


But if you wanna show, just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again


Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again


Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again


I'm never going down, I'm never coming down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more
I'm never coming down, I'm never going down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more

Another top song off the album, The Drugs Don't Work has helped me further the design for my album cover. The solemn lyrics and drug references further my desire to create a grungy, gritty theme to the cover and all it's parts.

creating custom text effects

i wanted to learn how to create a grungy urban style text for my album covers so i decided to give it a go using the eraser and some images of splatted paint. I started off by creating a new canvas and giving it a background colour (orange), then created the text i was going to edit. Before i could go any further the text needed to be rastarised so it could be manipulated, once that was done i selected the eraser tool, picked a brush to use and set about cutting into the text to created the grungy effect.

 After i spent absolutely ages doing this to all the letters i used the rotate tool to make it look more dynamic and added paint splatters which i found on the internet. These splatters were pure black and white to make it easier to blend into any scene. I simply added the photos, scaled and rotated them and set the transfer mode to screen.

^ Before setting transfer mode

^ After setting transfer mode!

Done! I am planning on creating something similar to this for use on my final covers

cutting out things in photoshop

to practice some photoshop before i begin work on my album cover i created a test image to experiment with techniques i will use to create my final work. I started off by opening one of my photos in photoshop!

I then found something to add to the image to practice extracting elements and blending them into other images. I found this nissan micra to stick in the mud, which will give the result some meaning by portraying my hate for these cars.

The first step was to extract the car from the image... i did this by making use of the lasso selection tool and the eraser and then used the levels editor to match the contrast. When deleting with the lasso selectrion tool i feathered the edges slightly to make sure it didn't leave any jagged edges. I also used the transform tools to scale and deform the car to get the perspective looking right, although the perspective could only modified to a certain limit so i placed the car carefully in the scene.

I then added shadows and reflections to blend the car into the scene better. To create the shadows i made a shape with the lasso selection tool then used the blur filter and eraser to make the shadow similar to the other ones in the scene. I made the reflection in the water by cutting and pasting a section of the car and using the transform tools to put it in the right place and lowered the opacity.

Then in a similar manner i added jesus.

Artist Research: Andy Potts

I spent a lot of time today looking at the work of Andy Potts. His style is very vibrant and freeflowing with lots of elements blended together or layered over each other which creates so much detail you can spend ages looking at his art. But not too much detail it all seems cluttered, the balance seems just right.

I love how the colours work so well together. If i tried something like this they would just clash and look like a 3 year olds first attempt at finger painting. He obviously has a great understanding of what colours work together and what ones don't.

The picture above shows a slightly different style of his, perhaps some of his earlier work. It still looks amazing and you can tell a lot of thought goes into it all.

 Potts has produced work for some big names, including Microsoft, IBM and the BBC. You can see why, his work is so eye catching and creative it is the perfect way to advertise.

I could easily stare at his website for hours going through his work for hours, so i will.

Edit: The blog doesn't seem to like very wide photos so i had to scale them all down

Julian Opie style art

To learn more about album covers and photoshop techniques we were given the task of recreating a photo of ourselves in the style of Julian Opie, the creator of the iconic artwork that appears on Blur's Best Of album cover. This album cover became known as defining the band's image and style from.

Opie's style seems simplistic and is easy to recreate in photoshop, although to get the same quality as his work requires patience and attention to detail. When he creates portraits the hair seems to have the most detail, and the rest of the person is kept very simplistic. He doesn't just create portraits, he recreates a variety of things in his unique style.

An example of a van in Opie's style

To create my own image in this style first i had to get a face on photograph of me, ensuring my mouth was closed as this is a repeating element in Opie's work. After opening the photo in photoshop i created a new layer and began to draw around the shape of my head with the pen tool, making sure my hair was outlined separately. I did this until i had drawn around all the elements that i wanted to include and created a new white layer underneath the pen layer, but above the original photo.

The original image, kept small for your sake

Step 1 complete

I then began to colour the image in using the brush tool on a layer underneath the lines so i didn't have to worry about being very precise. I then added a gradient background to complete the look.

Step 2 complete

Although now complete, i had some extra time and decided to add a little more detail and painting in some shading by using the lasso tool to draw areas i wanted in shadow and then coloured them slightly darker. 

The final image plus shading. Not sure which one i prefer but i learnt a lot doing this extra step.

And that's how i made an image of myself in Julian Opie's style. Simples.