Reuben Anderson - From Deepest Depths To Highest Heights

Over the past few years I have had the pleasure of working with a handful of musicians on the layout design, and sometimes illustration for their albums. It is always a great honor to be invited in to become a part of their creative process. They entrust me to help them create the wrapper for their art, to help them tell their story or get their message accross.  Reuben Anderson, a buddy of mine, is one of those musicians. He brought me onboard to help him create the layout, package design and some illustration for his debut solo album "From Deepest Depths To Highest Heights". Reuben wrote most of this album while recovering from a broken back. The result is an honest, touching and fun collection of songs. The package design for his album was jam-packed full of personal touches from the hand-written, heart-felt introduction page to the hand-drawn illustrations by his father. Here is the initial sketch that became the album cover.

The initial sketch of the album cover.

The initial sketch of the album cover.

If you'd like you can go to either his BANDCAMP or his WEBSITE and check it out (and should) , and if you like what you hear you can (and should!) buy a copy. Keep an ear out for him, it sounds like he's got a few cool new projects in the works.

From Deepest Depths To Highest Heights

From Deepest Depths To Highest Heights

More examples of the work I've done with musicians can be seen both in the 'album design' and the 'posters' tab on the top of the page. If you like what you see feel free to drop me a line. I'm always happy to work with new artists on new projects. Thanks for dropping by.

Vue Weekly Krampus Cover 2015

One of my favourite yearly projects is my annual Krampus cover for Vue Weekly. In my last post I went through my history of Vue Weekly Krampus covers. So far I've visited a whiskey drinking Krampus, Hipster Krampus, and late night talk show host Krampus Letterman. How do you top that? For this years inspiration I turned to the movie that I have seen more than any other: The Big Lebowski, and while it would have been easy for me to do a great version of Dude Krampus I thought I'd leave that for another time. I went with a supporting character who shares a namesake with a savior who holds what is most likely the most famous of all birthdays. The one, the only, The Jesus.

The Jesus.

The Jesus.

Like most things this started as a sketch, which I then inked. Scanned it and brought it into Illustrator to clean up the lines and add a few details. From there I added colour and finally dropped it into the Vue Weekly cover template. Behold Krampus Jesus!

The initial sketch / inks.

Simple line work done in Illustrator.

Basic colours done in Illustrator.

Brought in to Photoshop, and finished off.

So, there you have it. I had a great time getting this cover together. Now that you've seen the process, why not pop over to vueweekly.com to check out the paper, or you can read the whole thing online via Issuu. It's never too early to start thinking of next years Krampus. If you have any thoughts or ideas of what I should do for next years cover feel free to leave them or and other constructive feedback in the comments.

Thanks for dropping by.