Almost Album Cover

A few weeks back I got a call from the folks over at the Decon Group to put together some comps for an upcoming record by Gangrene, the collaborative outfit of Oh No and The Alchemist. Their upcoming record is called "Gutter Water" and true to both the name of the group and the title of the album, the art gang at Decon wanted something appropriately dank and grimey. This presented a unique challenge in that, while I certainly trafficked in gritty and gross back in the halcyon days of 2002-2004, it had been a while since I visited scuzz country. A quick trip back through the external hard drive and some old sketchbooks produced some self-reference from the age of post-collegiate id:







Having been talked out of a Willem Dafoe-esque method approach that would've required consuming nothing but black coffee and keeping myself awake for at least 36 hours in an effort to recreate the mind (thanks darling), i supposed i was ready to start... contrary to popular belief i'd learned a thing or 2 about Photoshop in the ensuing years and set about creating a watery cluster-cuss of detailed line drawings in as close to a digitally faked glue and tape collage as possible. Some of the ingredients:







And the end result:



I also did a version based on this old Cyclops drawing that i thought deserved more exposure:



Sadly, as you may have guessed from the post title, neither comp made the cut. It was, however, an entertaining use of a few hours trying to channel some methods and ideas that i never in billion years thought anyone would ask for again. Shine on you crazy something something.