Jedi Mind Tricks
The Bridge and the Abyss
I was asked to create illustrations based off of the album title “The Bridge and the Abyss”, and came up with the concept of the featured woman figure acting as the guardian of the bridge, leading to the abyss of the jungle and its mysteries. The cover is from the perspective of travelers (shown on the inside panels) approaching the bridge in a jungle, and then the view changes as the album is opened, to show the travelers going across the bridge, into the black abyss.
I took references from various jungle or forest imagery, and started looking at different types of rope bridges, had my wife pose for the reference shot on the cover, and used myself as reference photos for the figures walking across the bridge. This was to be an indirect continuation of the previous album I had done for them (the Thief and the Fallen), as in a similar concept of a character symbolizing life (the women), a nature scene, and death. After doing the first one in blues and purples, we turned towards warmth for the color palette, along with natural greens and browns to compliment the scene.
Jedi Mind Tricks
The Thief and the Fallen
I was approached by Jedi Mind Tricks to do the illustrations for their album, The Thief and the Fallen. This project was to be centered around the album title, and they let me run with the concept. The layout work was done in collaboration with my colleague Dan Bradley, which added to the fun of this project.
I was given the name of the album, but not a direction of what to do with the canvas other than a loose concept that it should reflect the artwork of John Dyer Baizley, who happened to be one of my biggest inspirations at the time (and still is). I loved the idea of mashing metal art concepts with the hip hop scene, and immediately went to work sketching out ideas. Eventually we landed on this forest scene, where I took the scene in a more surreal direction with the oversized birds roaming the forest with human bones scattered about. The idea was that man was lured into the forest by mother nature, and was eventually lost to the elements, with her watching over him as he decays. The rest of the artwork follows this timeline, with the middle pages and back cover art showing the full skeleton, and other victims of the forest.
Album Artwork
Jedi Mind Tricks
The Funeral and the Raven
This was the final install of the 3 album artwork link, a very loose link, but still linked. I was provided the title of the album, a darker tone style direction, and color direction of using dark purples.
One of the sources for inspiration was Edgar Allen Poe, so we had a good mix of ideas coming to mind right away. For the cover I went with an on-theme illustration of a 4-eyed raven standing on a skull. We wanted this cover to be less “busy” than the previous 2 releases, and focused on the raven and other alter elements. For the back cover, we intentionally split the image so that the group of hooded figures looks like they are walking towards the table, but far enough away to not bleed onto the cover art, as well as stand alone as its own image, all of this playing directly into the title of the album.
When opened, the inside panels reveal a “viking funeral” with a burning boat, and the audience of hooded figures in attendance watching from the riverbank. This scene was described to me as needing to be symbolic to “the closing of a chapter” for the previous 2 albums, which is why the burning boat felt appropriate. Overall, I love the direction we took this one, keeping its own image while also paying homage to the nature scenes, mysterious figures, and the included elements of demise.