Uncle Seth "Little Steps" EP

The "cover"...on the "back."

This is the cover I designed and illustrated for Uncle Seth's first 7-song EP in the year 2000. In 1997, the band Sixpence None the Richer released a self-titled CD which had the "cover" artwork located within the tray card which, traditionally, contains the "back" of the CD. Although technically "backwards," this allows for more space for the cover artwork. I convinced the band to go with this orientation, but this never seemed to catch on, and I think I only ever saw it employed a couple of times by other bands since.

My initial concept for the artwork was to reference the first manned moon landing and Neil Armstrong's "one small step" quote, with the other elements of the CD also reflecting an astronautical vibe (see below).

The cover was drawn in ink with a pen and a brush (then reduced and photocopied), but the liner notes were laid out on computer, then printed and also photocopied..

Liner notes with spacey credits.

Folded in half, the right side of these liner notes was in the spot where, traditionally, the "cover" would be (but in this design it's on the back).

The track listing is represented as planets the band would visit, and I created a fun "mission patch" for the upper right.

The budget for this CD was low, so we agreed to make the whole package look very indie by limiting it to black and white and then photocopying the artwork, deliberately showcasing the imperfections that would ensue. Each CD itself was labelled by me by hand with a black sharpie (because I had the best (most legible) penmanship).

My very first sketch was very close to the finished illustration of the guitar-wielding astronaut. The second sketch is of an astronaut playing guitar during a spacewalk.

Because the band were good friends of mine, I decided to sketch up some alternative concepts (just in case something better presented itself) even though we all felt strongly about the astronaut idea. I really like the dancers on the bottom right.

...and one more for good measure.

Comments

Axel Foley's Chevy Nova (1/25 scale model)

Multiple tributes, here. I remember first seeing Beverly Hills Cop on video at my friend Chris K's house, 'cause his family had a VCR and we'd watch tons of movies (and record music videos) together. The summer of 1984 was a special time for us (having created a strong bond in school since Grade 6 a few years before), going on biking adventures around the 'burbs and into the city, etc., and home video played an important role from then until I moved to the opposite end of Scarborough just before we started high school. We liked the movie a lot, both of us fans of Eddie Murphy from his Saturday Night Live days. I don't think I'd seen the movie since then (it would have been 1985, probably summer, since the movie came out in late 1984) and I became curious to see if it still held up. It did. It does. I found Murphy as charming as ever and the comedy (and even the action) holds up very well and its very re-watchable and very entertaining. Beverly Hi

City of Angels

17" x 11", watercolour and digital, 1999 Ah, City of Angels . I thought I was getting cool film noir but got a cheesy musical instead (Google it if you must). Still, it was fun to make the poster and associated images, mostly because the research consisted of watching real films noir and buying a great book on movie posters of the genre. I made tons of sketches and a few digital mock-ups. For the final poster above, I made three separate watercolour paintings (one of the couple and one each of the two black and white heads) and composited them in Photoshop, where I also added the text. In true movie poster fashion, I wanted the actors names to be the top two names, but I lost that battle and had to use the characters' names instead. It looks fine, but it implies that "Kingsley and Stone" are the lead actors in the show. Oh, well...it's only community theatre... By making the "angel" above half black and white and half colour, th

Small Pond Arts Puppet Wagon (1/24 scale model)

I dreamed up the Small Pond Shipyard for my fanciful scratch-built sci-fi airship creations (which still only exist in sketch/Photoshop mock-up form (and boxes in my closet) for now), but more and more ideas kept coming ( this wind turbine , for example, will be part of a rather elaborate diorama I'll be working on this winter). But the Puppet Wagon was a sleeper surprise, to be sure. [Really, though, I don't know why I was so eager to build this right away since I was planning to slowly develop my modelling skills with simpler builds first and the work my way up to more complicated projects.] Not all parts were used/needed. Most of these ideas have come from watching modelling videos online, and when I saw a review of this sweet little Japanese "Ramen Shop" food truck by Aoshima (right-side drive!), my brain started making jokes about customizing it to the weird food truck ideas I'd been posting on Facebook. But the more I thought about what the co

The Naked Silo

Search This Blog