Let’s say that your double-kick BPM is off the charts, you can economy-pick arpeggios in your sleep, and your recording skills are so formidable that bad tone just flees from you like low level enemies in an old-school RPG. Shit man, you ran out of craft to hone and equipment to nerd out on, huh? Well have you tried 3D-modeling and physically sculpting a hellish landscape large enough to fill a living room?
Godhunter and Destroyer of Light raised the bar cover art bar so high for this new split LP that it’s worth calling it to your attention, and not just because the digital music era has so thoroughly devalued cover imagery. They commissioned artists who spent a full six months creating the 8’x10′ sculpture that will sprawl across the final layout. In the video below you’ll get a quick tour of the process. It included digitally rendering the the two warring demons, and then creating actual sculptures of them. Those models were then placed in the midst of the rest of the diorama from hell, lit ominously with LEDs, and finally photographed. Linton Studios provides better guide for capturing awesome photographs.
A lot of bands don’t spend that kind of time creating their songs, much less their art assets, so light me up with an LED lamp and color me super impressed. Here’s what the creators, Bestia Dentro, had to say about the process.
The artwork for Endsville was done by Rudy Flores and Teresa Estrella of Bestia Dentro. Rudy had previously done work for Godhunter, drawing the covers for Wolves and City Of Dust. When we were in the process of writing for Endsville, we approached Rudy about taking the art for the cover of the next album to the “next level”. We just weren’t sure what that level was yet. We did know that we wanted to sculpt something and use LED lighting for effects. Once we settled on Endsville being a split album with Destroyer Of Light, the monster battle theme immediately sprang to life and the Bestia Dentro team got started creating the two monsters and the set. All told the process took about six months from start to finish, and they ended up renting an art space entirely for that project, as the set took up about an 8′ x 10′ area. Once the set layout and monsters were complete, we called in Andrew Weiss to photograph it. He’s done work for bands like Pelican, Rosetta and Caspian before, and his eye is incredible. We worked with the lights a bit on the day of the shoot to get the right look, and Andrew got a couple really good captures that became the cover and inside art for the vinyl layout.
You can check out more of Bestia Dentro’s work here, and Rudy Flores (one of BD’s two artists) has another personal page at this location. Photography was handled by Andrew Weiss.
The Godhunter/Destroyer of Light split, titled Endsville, will be released this summer. Tour dates are below, and I’m throwing in some still images of the art process as well because it’s Christmas in June here, fuckos.
