The cover artwork for the upcoming Faustcoven album is finally at a point where it's presentable enough to show it online. I've been done with it for around a year (not sure exactly when I did it actually), but since it is the largest piece of artwork that I've done that will be reproduced on an album cover (15"x30"), it needed to be professionally scanned. Scanners that are large enough to take such artwork are both rare and expensive machines, and thus are an expensive service as well.
I finally found a place in Lynchburg, VA that had one, and had them scan the drawing. I'm still not sure that it was a better option than having a professional photographer shoot it, but since I'm not in as close of contact with the person who has a lot of experience with that now, and I didn't have to deal with any blurry edges or carefully adjusting levels and contrast, it was a neat experience. I might be going that route more often for commissions.
The drawing itself is done in the same style as the last two, although I tried to add a lot more depth and darker values in this one. There's a lot more specific details, as I tried to incorporate many of the songs themes into the cover. I wanted to do something that you could look at for a long time, finding new details, although this is no "Somewhere in Time".
This illustration for the interior was a bit easier to scan in as it was just small enough to do at home. I had trouble with meshing it together though, as I had somehow managed to accidentally cut the physical drawing in half. I had thought that this would actually make the illustration easier to scan, but without being able to overlap the two sides it proved impossible. I carefully taped it back together, and even then it required a lot of digital edited to make it presentable.
