CD cover art

Hello
Thanks for stopping in!

I just got hired to do a major label CD cover.
And I am excited about this.
It will be in most major music chain stores... internationally!

and I want this to be great so I need your critque.


I will be posting parts here and there in the next few weeks

the theme is a dark poetic scene of a book and candle with a few other things I have not come up with

I cant show you the logo/title because they dont want me too yet
but I can show parts

here is the book so far (this is a real real low rez version)
the real one is 3000px wide hehehe
I am working on these two things right now

There is a close up below to see details

They said they wanted artwork not photos so I made these totally in PS v7 only default filters and one Eyecandy filter for the
underlying wood grain. I did get the Pale Rider from a photo of an old old bible though.

Lu,

That's amazing. It looks photorealistic.

What time period is the book supposed to be from. I have many illos. and text jpgs from different bibles thoughout the ages if you need any reference material.

Ephraim

p.s. Congrats on the CD job.

thanks friend!

The book is not really any period at all I looked at a few 1470 bibles on this site I found its kind of fantasy
and the helped me a lot I would like to see some of the materials you have!


I have added a lot of stuff on this since I posted it hehe I will put up another pic here in a minute I added things that came to mind as I read the lyrics lastnight
the CD is mainly about a mans trials of finding that he can trust no man not even the church in his case.
its not a Christian CD but it has some intresting undertones hehe
I wish I could tell you guys who its for hehehe but I will later on

here is kind of an update
Allthough things are just coming together.
May favorite thing on this run is the "red silk bookmark ribbon"
I am very happy with how that came out

I made it with just hand mousing a long selection criscrossed a few times and filled with red and tossed a pattern over it with OVERlay blendmode on it added a few dark areas on an above layer and bang! there she was!
It has a key tied on the end of it because its a lyrical reference.

as is the mirror with flame the letter pouch on stage left is just a graphic I had from an old project (never used) and I thought it could and some warmth.

the shadow under mirror is not done yet
Any comments thanks!

Mirror w/fire is a little too much for me,

I love the bookmark also. How many hours have you put into this amazing graphic?

Is the logo/title going to be on top of that graphic?

Very nice! Very good detail!

the actual size and FOV will be different then this
this is a close up shot there will be much more above all this
an angel with barbed wire wraped around her.

yea the mirror may need a little aging and haze over the glass part to help tone it down
But it is from one of the main lyrics and it really needs to be in there.

as far as time goes the pages and book edges and layering the textures and findin a nice blend was longest like 5 hours
but the ribbon and key took only 5 minutes or less.

more coming soon check back!


Lucidic

well

Very, very nice Lucidic...

One thing that's sticking out to me is the photo on the right page seems to be on a flat plane. It doesn't coincide with the beautiful natural roll of the page that you created.

Just my humble opinion of course, but i think you will agree if its the first time you notice it as well.

I can't see any pic, have you taken them off?

And yeah, congrats on the job.

they are up it is just my server was moved so everything has been weird today

Hay Lucidic. I think that is great you are really good at what you do!

Thanks Rena Kay

Lucidic, great job indeed, and if it is a work in progress I wonder what's going to be there in the final version!!!

Though I agree with otto, the image on the right page is a little bit flad, if you could make it roll a little along with the page, it would be just perfect!!!

And just a question, is it for a band we might have heard about or some new name? I'd understand if you would you rather not talk about it until the work is finished though...

Well they loved all I have done
I wanted to get all the small tweaks posted here as I went through it BUT
holidays made it hard and I had deadlines

The lead singer on this project is the Lead singer from
DREAM THEATER! cool huh

But they stopped the direction I was going and changed up on me
They said they wanted it to be less busy and not show all of both pages of book
plus they wanted it much closer up than I had it
I hated to lose the table textures. But i made some nice windows way in the back to give it a depthand it realy brings out the edge of book well.
I liked the busy version I had better (never posted it)

This is a low rez version for online
OH yea I know I need to make the words bend a little to helop them flow as the page humps

the real one is way way way bigger like 2500px across.


CD COVER

That is top stuff very very impressive stuff, it must have taken u a while to do lol.

I have worked on it over a 2 week period and about 4 sessions of 3 or 4 hours

OMG

Dream Theater are wicked! Mike Portnoy is one of my favourite drummers

Anyway, great job Lucidic

Great job, You truely are a genius, keep up the good work.

how did u created the paper effect ?

Good question!
hehe I wish I had a tutorial on it but everytime I do old paper effects its a different method hehe.
On this one I started with a "construction paper" yellow rectangle
then added texture from various photos I had of concrete and walls and some from PS7default patterns then I
duplicated the layers and used a large amount of layer blending modes,
created shadows and highlights with layers and blending modes
anded some scratchy looking texture with some nice brushes I have.

The very weak outlines on edge area of pages are a dingbat font that I rasterized and tweaked and blended in

I went around edge and selected out some stuff to make it ragged used the burn tool alot too.

To make the behind pages I did two things.
For the ones on the righ side I selected the edge of my first page and copy/pasted it behid each other until i had a few.
Then went over edge and varied them some.

then I faked the bottom dark pages
I just made a selectionof where I wanted them and then did a Horizantal texture fill with the default filter.


maybe I can do a tut on it someday
Thanks for looking!
Lu

awesome photoshop skills!