The themes the band plays with revolve mostly around greed and exploitation. Their message is right on point with much of the general unrest most people are feeling today so there were a lot of timely concepts to play with.

It was important for the band to stick to the traditional metal ethos and as a result they wanted to create a recognizable mascot character. Much the same way Derek Riggs did for Iron Maiden with Eddie the Head. The band came up with a character they call Greedy and his main feature is his skull head with features that kind if spell out the band’s name. Two capital “G’s” for the eye sockets, a dollar sign for the nose cavity and teeth spelling out the word “greed”.

I did numerous sketches of the skull an Greedy in various situations as well as played around with the symbolism associated with wealth and corporations. The final result for the cover was a wrap around that features Greedy in his corporate headquarters basking in his wealth while brokers plummet past his window a la stock market crash in 29. It’s a brutal and unsettling image that serves as a commentary on the current state of wealth and the economy…it also helps that the music is pretty darn good too.

The Society of Publication Designers posted a great article on their website about the recent Village Voice All Comics Issue. The article goes behind-the-scenes with Art Director John Dixon and reveals some of the steps the artist took along the way. Ward Sutton did a fantastic cover and I love Mitch O’Connell’s video walkthu. SPD was nice enough to include my portrait of Robin Williams for the Bengal Tiger in the Bagdhad Zoo review. It was a great issue to work on and I’m glad to see it’s getting some positive press.

At least it’s description does. This happened to be one of those assignments where I did not receive any source material. As a result I researched what I could and spent the rest of the time speculating and concentrating on what I the material evoked.

There were a few things I was certain should make it into the finished piece. Mainly Robin himself. However, if I could somehow include a tiger that would be good too. John sent me some publicity stills and when I got to see how raggedy and tired Williams looked in character the concept formed: I would paint Robin Williams as the character, only I would give him a bengal beard to make the connection and drive the characterization home. I thought the sensitive confrontation of close up of Williams was the best way to go. If I could somehow evoke the nature of the Iraq War, well that would only strengthen the image. Indirectly I wanted Williams to look kind of like those pictures of a defeated Saddam Hussein. Those shots after Saddam’s capture where he looks tired, disheveled and hasn’t seen a razor in months. The challenge would be to make sure the person in the finished piece looked like Robin Williams even though much of his face was obscured by a beard.

Things developed as the imaged progressed. I added some helicopters, smoke, minarets and a feeding slot to the cage. John gave me tremendous amounts of leeway in creating this image and as a result I made an early decision to give the painting a unique shape. The pointed arch is a staple of Arabic architecture and framing the final piece that way made it that much more descriptive. All in all a fun assignment.

In the past Chikara DVD covers have all been homages to famous comic book covers, replacing super heroes with their line up of wrestlers. This time around Ruben thought a departure from a comic book cover to an album cover would really make the event stand out. His choice of using Storm Thorgerson’s cover for Pink Floyd’s Division Bell as the source fit perfectly for the event.

This isn’t the first time I painted something of Thorgerson’s, or Pink Floyd’s. In High School I had a business painting album covers on the back of denim jackets. Back then I painted just about every Pink Floyd album cover out there, and even made a few up. I’ll post some pictures sometime when dig out the photo albums from my Mom’s.

I was lucky enough to attend School of Visual Arts where Jim teaches High Focus Drawing. A class that expands on the lessons mentioned in this article and is hands down the most in depth and intensive study of drawing out there. If you’ve ever wanted to know how the magic is done, this column will give you a great idea.

I also put together a video of the whole job, start to finish.

Thanks to the City of Baltimore, The community of Oliver and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and Arts. I had a great time putting this together and working with my old friend Charles Lawrance. Be sure to check out Charles’ work at finart.net.