After coming up with some design concepts and doing some sketches and mock-ups, I started work on the final design.

I wanted the design to look like an illustration, so I decided to use Adobe Illustrator. I often hand-draw elements, scan them, and import them into Illustrator. Once in Illustrator, I can convert the scans to vector illustrations and then clean them up as necessary.

This projet wasn’t any different.  I started off with a sketch of the central element – the devil girl – and I inked in an outline using my trusty Pilot Razor Point pen.  You can see I left some things out: hair, facial features, and other details would get attention in Illustrator.

After scanning, I converted the outline to vectors and cleaned it up.  I corrected some issues (like the position and size of the back leg), and filled in the main areas with red.  I created white vector shapes for highlights, and added a few shadows. The hair took some time, since I drew the jagged blue highlights by hand.  I also spent some time getting the facial features just right.

Once I had the girl finished, I created some 2-point perspective lines and created the shape of the room and all of the elements of the desk. Originally the desk was green, but I wound up changing it to purple because I liked the way it worked in the final design.

There was a shit-ton of detail work after that: creating the background and background textures, making styrofoam head illustrations and then the wigs that sit on them, bottles for the desk and coolers for the back wall. The last thing that I added was the DD69 logo and the title of the album, and the cover was finished.

Once that was finished I added a hue layer, moved some of the titling around,  and resized it for use on the CD surface itself.  Since we were doing a 2-panel insert I only needed to do the design for the inside panel of the insert and then I’d finally be done.

Coming up: the inside panel.