A little step forward

Open Hand album art update!

After a lot of ho-humming and figurin, I came up with a package idea for the album to incorporate all the thematic elements we were going for. I wanted to present farmland Europe/Americana clashed with the backdrop of an encroaching warzone. The bee elements are coming in on more subtle levels, though there's still little details to add to each piece that will bring the whole thing into one cohesive package.

First up is the C-Card insides...this is where all the text will go. All the record label jargon, any lyrics we decide to drop in..all that jazz. The map is a really old layout of the front near Warsaw. I wanted to create something that would fold out and feel like a tactical hex-based map for tabletop gaming, but also call out the honey theme. I'll be adding in some bee elements and maybe some fake tabletop pieces to complete it before the text goes in.


Next up is the back cover of the cd case. I wanted this to be a continuation of the front piece (see the album art down a couple of posts) so that it would seem like a turnaround of the shot...but maybe at a later date. This thing is culled together from about 30 different images and I painted the blast marks on in PS.

And finally...the inside leaflet. When you pull the c-card out and open it up, this is the flap that you'll find. I hand stenciled this for the most part...using the Threshold method, I came up with the basic outline, then chipped away at it with a marker brush until I got the shapes i wanted. After that, it was all hand coloring. I've got a few more elements to add to this as well (some sky stuff and text), and then it will get mounted on the c-card template and cut out. As you can see, I ALMOST stuck to my color palette, but then I kind of wandered off.

I should be done by the week's end...as soon as we get a sample printed, I'll scan it all to post here.