Ascended, T-shirts and Detest Records

Right after Where Death and Decay Reign I got several new designs to work with.

Ascended's first (and sadly last) EP was to be published as a tape alongside CD and the tape version needed a cover. Tommi Sookari already knew me because of the Stench of Decay covers so he asked me to do it.

It was fun to draw but considering the actual size of the final cover, I got bit carried away. So the image is quite crowded. I sent them a version with the logo in but it didn't really stand out so the final version was just like this, no text or logos. I think it worked out better that way.

Ascended - Temple of Dark Offerings (EP Tape, 2009, Detest records).

After doing several covers, I got a chance to do couple shirt designs. Stench of Decay wanted an original T-shirt design and the shirt was to be white. On a white shirt, I think the image shouldn't be too dark so I went in with a different kind of atmosphere than my earlier works but tied the image to the Where Death and Decay Reign demo cover with the building on the background. So its kind of a zoom out of the demo cover. The image itself has much more space that in the works I had done before and also the desert atmosphere is quite different that I was used to. But I guess the haunting feeling in this picture comes from that, the vast space with no life signs around (only dead!) - so i named the artwork Where No-one Hears You Scream.

Where No-one Hears You Scream. Design for the Stench of Decay T-shirt.

 And this is how it looked on the final product:

Stench of Decay T-shirt (2009)

With Stench of Decay and Ascended I also got to know Jerry from Detest Records as he has been putting out records from both of the bands. Jerry is very enthusiastic about music so It was easy to accept his work for a Detest Records T-shirt. And for the design, I had pretty much free hands, Jerry just said that come up with something grim, morbid and evil! I had learned from the Stench of Decay T-shirt that a T-shirt design is definately something else than doing a cover but I took the challenge and had fun with it. Around the time I started sketching this work I was reading H.P.Lovecraft's fiction and I guess it influenced me quite a lot for this bizarre tentacled monster. Nowadays I tend to draw more pictures with tentacles than without! Iä! Iä!

Here is the design:

Detest

The image was inverted for the shirt:

Detest Records T-shirt (2010)

 Looking back, every single commission work I had done this far was for Detest Records in a way or another! So I owe a great deal to the bands for a possibility to work for them - but also Jerry of Detest Records who is publishing good bands (and artwork alongside with it) and supporting the good old death metal. \,,/

Until next time,

-Eero

Second Stench of Decay demo

In 2009 Stench of Decay's second demo that was being in the making for a while was becaming reality. First the tape was out and I was to make (my first ever!) cover for it.

This was quite specially made to be a cover, when you look at the tombstone in the front thats quite obvious. But otherwise, the pic came out quite general. Im pretty sure it was not 100% what Stench quys were looking for but they approved it anyhow.

With the tape cover also the latest (and the final so far) version of the Stench of Decay logo saw light of day.

Stench of Decay logo inverted and normal.

And the finished cover looked like this with logo and album name:

Where Death and Decay Reign (Tape, Detest Records 2009)

The LP version came out later and it had a different cover than the tape version. This was quite logical as the dimensions with tape and lp are so different - not to mention size!

With Where Death and Decay Reign LP cover I came to understand that I dont necessarily have to draw album cover as a cover - but just draw a cool image and crop it to the right size. Of course I had to think about the layout and positioning of the logos and such but not to get too constricted with the limits, just fill the whole paper and use it the best way it works.
Original Where Death and Decay Reign LP cover is not considerably larger than the actual cover but still a bit larger.

Here is the original artwork:

This was probably more what the Stench of Decay was after. Less typical Death Metal zombies and more atmospheric scenery.

And here how the cover turned out:

Stench of Decay - Where Death and Decay Reign (12" MLP, Detest Records
/ Me Saco Un Ojo Records 2009)

Next Ascended, T-shirts and Detest Records!

Until that time,

-Eero

How It All Began

It  was around 2006-2007 when I got into death metal. I started getting albums of legendary bands such as Death and Morbid Angel but I also found myself searching for smaller new bands from websites such as MySpace. There seemed to be lots of interesting bands out there as I really didn't like the way death metal sounded today, I was liking the "old sound" more.

One band in particular was embracing the old school death metal in a way that really got my attention. The band was Stench of Decay (http://www.myspace.com/stenchofdecay). When it comes to original death metal, in addition to music, I really enjoyed the artwork of the genre. What I like about it that it is raw, unpolished and full of passion - just like the music itself. I really don't like the digital art that seems to be the norm nowadays, it kills the personal touch, your own style don't show through. Of course there are exceptions but all in all, I prefer analog over digital. That in mind, I wanted to try my skills creating something new for the genre and I chose black ink to be my tool of the trade. I had been experimenting with it before but I relly wanted to make more with it - and death metal illustrations seemed to be the way to go.

I figured out that in order to make good art, you have to have passion for it - you have to like what you are doing. So it seemed logical to contact Rami Simelius from Stench of Decay as I really enjoyed their music. I wanted to make new logo, artwork or anything for them. I got green light and I sent like a million different ideas for the logo. They we'rent all that great and many were imitating logo's of existing bands. But it got me started, it got me hooked. New Stench demo wasn't to be finished in a while so before I got to show my skills to Stench of Decay, I got some practise making posters for shows that were taking place in Pori.

Abigail in Finland (2007). Idea I got from the famous kamikaze photo. Note the Stench logo in its early stages.

The band scene was quite active back then, Metal Warning in cooperation with Stench of Decay and others got many great metal bands to play here. Next in the pipeline was Nunslaughter.

Nunslaughter was great. I wanted all my posters to be signed by the band. Black version of the Stench logo.

There were many shows that I didn't make posters for, for example Toxic Holocaust. But through Rami, I got to make quite a few. For example one for the great Czech band Root.

This art is just a remake of a photo, so nothing special in that way. Again, signed by the Big Boss himself and the band.

After that, the work for Stench of Decay really started. But thats a story for another time.

- Eero