Cover art artists.

[Kim Olesen]

Recommend me some. We need a cover/booklet for the next Anubis Gate album.

[SteveSly]

Michael Bennett is a good one: http://www.michaelbennett.com/

He has done all of the art for The ProgDay Festival for all of it's 18 years as well as album covers for prog bands like Wobbler, Cast, Woodenhead, and many others.

Steve Sly

[Scott Bails]

Our own Man in the Mountain, AKA Martin Kornick (http://www.maninthemountain.com/), is pretty damn talented.

[LASERCD]

Good luck Kim. They are all flakes. Just went through 3 different ones to get the new Cynthesis artwork created.

Bjoern from Killustrations is dependable and a good kat to work wth.

[SteveSly]

Our own Man in the Mountain, AKA Martin Kornick (http://www.maninthemountain.com/), is pretty damn talented.

Agreed, Martin is another talented one.

Steve Sly

[Kim Olesen]

Good luck Kim. They are all flakes. Just went through 3 different ones to get the new Cynthesis artwork created.

Bjoern from Killustrations is dependable and a good kat to work wth.

I know Björn. He is great. He did the cover for our album Andromeda Unchained and won an award for best cover that year for it. We are just looking for an artist with a less "metal" style this time.

[Man In The Mountain]

Good luck Kim. They are all flakes. Just went through 3 different ones to get the new Cynthesis artwork created.
Well, I'm not a flake even in the slightest sense. Lasers Edge has not worked with me, sorry to hear of his troubles... but anyone who has worked with me knows I'm 100% dependable and never short on ideas or quality. That's why people like Neal Morse have used me consistently for over 14 years.

Anyways, thanks Scott & Steve for the nice praise & referral! If you like my style of work, Kim, drop me an e-mail. Best wishes!

[Superfly]

Some day, I'll get to do this again, when all the computers crash and people need hand painted work once more :) All those photoshopped covers look the same to me, or more specifically, done by the same person.

[Kim Olesen]

Well, I'm not a flake even in the slightest sense. Lasers Edge has not worked with me, sorry to hear of his troubles... but anyone who has worked with me knows I'm 100% dependable and never short on ideas or quality. That's why people like Neal Morse have used me consistently for over 14 years.

Anyways, thanks Scott & Steve for the nice praise & referral! If you like my style of work, Kim, drop me an e-mail. Best wishes!

You are on my list. I've looked at your homepage. What we often do is once we've settled for an album title we browse the "unused artwork" section of an artist homepage and see of we stumble onto something that just clicks.

[Gruno]

All those photoshopped covers look the same to me, or more specifically, done by the same person.

100% Agreed. It looks to be the case with many. It seems it is about putting in as many different objects or scenes into one canvas, then distressing the scene images. Many seem to have a sepia tint or gray theme.

Not taking away from ManInTheMountain's work -- if he is commissioned to do such work and the client approves, then it's a win-win for both. It does appear that many CD covers in the prog scene have become repetitive.

[Man In The Mountain]

You are on my list. I've looked at your homepage. What we often do is once we've settled for an album title we browse the "unused artwork" section of an artist homepage and see of we stumble onto something that just clicks.
OK. Keep in mind I don't have an "unused artwork" selection because I'm totally "project based". I preferably to work with your lyrics and a sample of the music that I then base the artwork on. I like to match the mood of the music, and the ideas in the album, rather than try and fit some unrelated work into it. Sometimes I'm asked to do something very specific as well, and flesh it out. Everything I do is custom made for your music.... Rather then just being an artist who perhaps makes cool pictures of rock arches and floating cities. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if it's done well I love that stuff too.

[Man In The Mountain]

Some day, I'll get to do this again, when all the computers crash and people need hand painted work once more :) All those photoshopped covers look the same to me, or more specifically, done by the same person.

100% Agreed. It looks to be the case with many. It seems it is about putting in as many different objects or scenes into one canvas, then distressing the scene images. Many seem to have a sepia tint or gray theme.

Not taking away from ManInTheMountain's work -- if he is commissioned to do such work and the client approves, then it's a win-win for both. It does appear that many CD covers in the prog scene have become repetitive.

There's good, bad, and mediocre in all forms of art. Just because you paint or draw rather than use computer tools doesn't mean it's better or more more original. You see a lot of computer based graphic arts in prog rock covers because it's inexpensive, easy to edit, and much quicker to render for the PRICE of what musician's have to pay. There's no way I could spend a month or so PAINTING a cover for Neal Morse. For Momentum we went through about 6 very well fleshed out cover ideas, before he (and probably God) thought it worked. Then there's all the booklet artwork and promotional work. It's 100% smarter to use a "Graphic Arts" based work to accomplished all this, then to make a painting and have it photographed and reproduced for a CD package. That's really old-school, time consuming, and very very costly.

It would be cool to record an album in 100% analog as well on reel to reel... but these are the times for digital.

[Superfly]

It would be cool to record an album in 100% analog as well on reel to reel... but these are the times for digital.

Sharon Jones recorded her last album all on old analog equiptment, so it hasn't gone out of fashion completely. :roll

I never, at any point, said that hand drawn was better or more original than digital art. All I said was that so many of these covers look like they were very similar to me. Take the Dream Theater covers...now, every metalish band out there seems to have a cover that looks like a DT cover. Yeah, it may take less time, and be cheaper to produce, and good for those artists who got the gig.

Tell it to the drummer who has been replaced by a drum machine. :lol

[Man In The Mountain]

All I said was that so many of these covers look like they were very similar to me. Take the Dream Theater covers...now, every metalish band out there seems to have a cover that looks like a DT cover.
Yeah, I know. But most genres of music tend (not in all cases, but most) to market with graphics of a certain style. Whether it's jazz, blues, RAP, Boy Band, or Progressive Rock. I have a hard time breaking outside of the prog art market because my portfolio is filled with sci-fi 70ish type artwork. Not sure a RAP artist, or someone like Taylor Swift would look at my work and want to hire me. I have a better chance, as you said, of getting a Dream Theater clone to hire me. I'm also sure greats like Roger Dean are pigeonholed within a certain genre of music marketing. I find it tiring to see his over-used arched rock style dragged out over & over as well. But, damn, wish I had a career like Roger Dean's!

For what it's worth, I've always been a fan of your work! But even you would have to admit, probably only a certain type of band may be interested in a pen & ink style.

[Superfly]

For what it's worth, I've always been a fan of your work! But even you would have to admit, probably only a certain type of band may be interested in a pen & ink style.

Thanks, and you know I respect your work as well. Always have. I agree that a lot of my art wouldn't fit most genres of music, especially the pen and ink work. But the scope of my art is pretty broad, and most of my work is done with watercolors and a brush, and some of THAT is perfect for the prog community. Thankfully, there's still a great appreciation for it in the horror marketplace. (I just finished a 14 page sequential adaptation of a Joe Lansdale story, some of which you can see over on facebook)

Interestingly enough, last year I was commissioned by a rap group out of philly to do a t-shirt design for them. 'Reefer Madness' was the end result.

In most commissioned pieces, you are at the mercy of the client, and sometimes their's is the imagination that sets the limits on a project.

[Gruno]

I have a hard time breaking outside of the prog art market because my portfolio is filled with sci-fi 70ish type artwork. Not sure a RAP artist, or someone like Taylor Swift would look at my work and want to hire me.

Have you tried doing artwork that appealed to other genres? Mock-up's, perhaps? Does your portfolio have a wide range or is it prog-specific?

[Man In The Mountain]

Have you tried doing artwork that appealed to other genres? Mock-up's, perhaps? Does your portfolio have a wide range or is it prog-specific?

The majority of my cover work has been in prog, so that's what I have. I do some nice work for a female classic rock singer, but I wish I had more of it because it's a style I can do quite well. Anything that is more classic guitar rock, pop-alternative... anything leaning towards old-school perhaps... I can do well, (or anything with just band shots graphic elements), I just haven't gotten the connections, or I don't hang around on the internet hot-spots to get to know those people. Anything Ghetto, Hard Core, Death, etc., I don't really do, because you really have to live that life, or have that mentality to nail it properly.

[arabicadabra]

>Anything Ghetto, Hard Core, Death, etc., I don't really do, because you really have to live that life, or have that mentality to nail it properly. <

After seeing Keith Emerson's keyboards on fire, I shivered so much that I called for our second cover with you - and now every clock I own is afraid you're going to blow it up!

[progeezer]

I can't speak to who is a good choice for album cover art, but I can say that I have a Super Fly original hanging in my living room that was originally supposed to be an album cover. Every single comment I've had about it, and there have been several, has been effusively positive.

[everythingtoexcess]

Well, I'm not a flake even in the slightest sense. Lasers Edge has not worked with me, sorry to hear of his troubles... but anyone who has worked with me knows I'm 100% dependable and never short on ideas or quality. That's why people like Neal Morse have used me consistently for over 14 years.

Agreed 100%. Martin has done two album covers for us and both have been well beyond our expectations.

[Superfly]

I have a Super Fly original hanging in my living room that was originally supposed to be an album cover. Every single comment I've had about it, and there have been several, has been effusively positive.

...and I thought you were going to hang it in the bathroom :lol

[Rune Blackwings]

sorry i missed this