Album cover trial

Album cover experimentation. 

I used brusho and fineliner to create a brightly executed elephant design, I decided to use an elephant for my design because of it's spiritual meaning which is: Pride, stability and power. I feel this is another animal that is a significant representation of Enter's music and will be manipulating the image as a trial for an album cover design. 

Firstly I used the selection wand to cut out the shape of the image that I required, I decided not to cut off all of the colour and ripped paper around the elephant drawing as I feel this will benefit the texture and depth of the drawing. The fine liner on my image is very sketchy and so I used the paintbrush tool on a dark grey colour and opacity of 80% to trace over the most important lines on the elephant design this will help the design stand out. I then used a pastel coloured rainbow gradient on spiral and an opacity of 15% and layered it up in different directions 3 times to generate a layered and textured pattern to compliment the texture of the brusho. The use of the gradient also helped to tone down the harshness of the paintbrush and generated a smoother surface, helping blend the while design together. Once I'd developed this design I then worked around the edge with the doge tool to achieve a burnt out affect around the edges, I wanted it to look work away but not be too harsh as to distract away from the colour. 

After I'd worked into my image I decided I wasn't happy with the colour and wanted to develop a wider range of colours and brightness throughout the elephant portrait. To achieve this I used a rainbow gradient on linear and worked over in various directions 3 times on an opacity of 20%. Once I'd completed this step I then used the colour toolbar to change the brightness and contrast until I was happy with the final outcome. 

1st Design Idea.

Once I had an image I was happy with I created a plain background on photoshop and covered it with a conical gradient of black and blue, and then added my two elephant designs in the top right hand corner and the bottom left hand corner as a layout design idea for an album cover. I decided I didn't like the idea and feel the colours don't compliment each other, in my next design I will make sure that I choose a more appropriate colour pallet and blend my layers better so it looks like one solid flowing design.