Temple of Brutality's debut CD Lethal Agenda was an interesting challenge to work on. The client wanted to go with their logo for the front cover and use the back of the booklet for art work depicting the White House in disarray, to put it lightly. Basically depicting a post apocalyptic world ravaged by War. In most cases my first objective is to collect all my supporting imagery before I start any composite. That means, shoot it, buy it, paint it, or build it. Whatever I gotta do... This particular composite was a bit of a challenge, as the actual White House was a bit too far for me to actually travel to, and well... not cost effective. In typical fashion, I went ahead and sketched out (and I use that term lightly... as in... chicken scratch) the basic layout of the CD on paper. Yes, I promise you I can draw. But when I'm roughing out ideas on paper, I shoot out to get some basic scribbles down to work out the weight. So I don't put much thought in it. These drawings are never seen by the client.

After roughs are done, I'll start the process of laying out the internals and flowing the type into the booklet. I was lucky enough that the guys had all of this in order at the beginning. So I went ahead and knocked out most of it before starting on the main composites. The logo was supplied by the client as an eps, rendered in 3D and composited in Photoshop to achieve the look you see above. I was not familiar with the markings on the logo but was told to anticipate the cover being censored in some European countries. That was the main reasoning for the "hero" art work moving to the back of the booklet.

With that done I made a list of what I needed to shoot and what I need to find references for. Doing quite a bit of research, looking into 3D models, weighing the costs vs budget, I finally settled on the idea of locating archival images of the White House. Images that were part of public domain libraries, and available in large enough resolution to work for this project. Though they were quite old, an not an exact match to what the White House looks like today. I was able to composite together something that to the untrained eye, seemed "close enough" Yes the building looks different, yes there is now a fountain that's missing in the shot. But hey, it's close! Clouds were secured through morguefile.com along with sky photos I shot myself. The fence was shot right down the street from me, at an abandoned factory. It was isolated and after quite a bit of work aging and color grading... the composite was done.

The CD tray served as a space for the second major composite. Budget being a concern I was limited on what I felt comfortable buying for this shot. The mask was put together using a lawnmower mask, some paint and a few extra filters. A little double sided tape and the classic ninja shirt trick and I was set. Yes, that's me in the mask. I work cheap! The casket was another one I had to think about. I ended up creating a 3D casket and flag in C4D using the cloth feature to drape the custom flag over it. Worked amazingly well...considering. So there yah have it, that concludes our second behind the scenes peek this week. I hope you've enjoyed the glimpse. Remember, a little ingenuity and a lot of luck... er work... can go a long way.

|Temple of Brutality: Lethal Agenda

Credits:
Produced by : Temple of Brutality
Executive Producer : Karl Bergstrom
Recorded at Alternative Sound Studios
Ft Myers Beach , Florida - USA
Engineered by: Greg Timco
Mixed By: Jason Slater
Band Photos By: Doug Heslep
Illustrations & Design By : Nel Santiago @ ForbiddenSky
Note: A false Layout Credit that was inserted during typical production preps for the American Release. Efforts were made to find out why this modification took place. Including emails cc'ing the person credited. They went unanswered. No attempt was ever made to correct this and the credit for my work is in no way warranted.

Tags: CD Design | C4D | Photoshop