The Artwork of New World

I can remember sitting in Monigram Coffee Roasters, sipping the smoothest Americano I’ve had the privilege of tasting. Trevor was across from me dreaming about his vision for the New World project and what he wanted it to represent. What he wanted the listener to experience. The grand overarching theme he wanted to capture of mystery, imagination and epic journeys to lands unknown. In terms of the artwork, we wanted to the viewer to enter into this somehow. The plan initially was to create a scene using various photos, and compositing everything together. But what became clear very early on was that painting the artwork would give us far more latitude and freedom to express what we wanted to express… And so I got to work.

I decided to paint the artwork in Photoshop using my Wacom Tablet, which allows me, in a very real sense, the ability to paint using a computer. This meant that we could make changes to the artwork without having to worry about all the headaches that come with modifying an actual painting.

The first thing was to get a rough idea out regarding content and composition. Basic shapes and simple brush strokes are all that are necessary here. On the image on the right, not only can you see that primitive representations of people have been added, but the building in the foreground has been moved. Painting digitally is very accommodating to this. Physical painting not so much.

Further development has occurred here. The tones and the composition are getting close to what was settled on. The planet is situated in the upper left, with the airship in the upper right. Various different elements (which didn’t make it in the end) were added at this stage, the eagle and the blowing leaves being the most notable. The airship has been painted to look like an old ark, hearkening to the images we all see as kids (or as adults) of Noah’s ark. It (the ark) looked pretty good but didn’t sit quite right with me. I knew at this point point that it wasn’t going to stay this way, but I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted it to look like, so I didn’t fuss over changing it. Overall, everything is close at this point, about 90% there. But that last 10% always proves to be the most challenging, and that’s what we’ll talk about next time.

Watch for more posts showing the development of the New World artwork.