Peter Steele Poster.

To commemorate a year since the death of legendary bassist, Peter Steele, I was asked by several fans to illustrate a portrait of the great man in action.

Printed on 200gm photo-art paper and signed by the artist, these dynamic posters capture the intensity of the performer as he will be forever remembered.

Petrus T. Ratajczyk (January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010)

Special Limited Edition of 250.

Size A3 (16”x 22”)

Also available in green

Available from

the blog shop.

Larger sizes in canvas can also be ordered by contacting bruteprop@gmail.com

KMFDM: WTF? album artwork

For the latest KMFDM release, band leader Sascha Konietsko and I came up with this enticing but dangerous femme fatale within whose tempting assets destruction awaits.

Coincidentally, I had been musing on the way women’s faces, lit from beneath by the light from their mobile phones,  resemble those Renaissance paintings of  Madonnas  and the placement of the sparkling fuse in the artwork adequately conveys this flushed, angelic look (even though its source is threatening).

Several alternative colour combinations were suggested before agreement was made on the featured green and yellow.

For more details on the album’s release, please visit KMFDM’s web site here

Day for Night: Jack the Ripper cover

Of  all the Illustrator artwork I’ve done over the years, this cover for new band Night Surgeon proved to be so intense and complicated that I had to go out and buy a new PC (each brick in the left wall has between 3-6 different layers and the RoBoHo took almost a week to complete). While the story concerns the antics of Britain’s most famous serial killer, Jack the Ripper’s shadow is the only evidence of his presence in the scene.

I was heavily influenced by my research into the crimes of Jack the Ripper and spent hours poring over some of the lurid lithographs of the period, trying to somehow convey the flickering effect of old gas lamps on foreground and background shadows. In addition to the lithographic research, I sourced early Kasimir Malevitch‘s paintings of farm workers etc. to convey the stiffness in the coats and uniforms worn by policemen of the period.

Of all the work I’ve done so far with Illustrator, this piece has had the steepest learning curve of the lot and the compunction to continue layering was hard to resist. In recent years, I’ve endeavored to minimalise my style to such an extent that I’d forgotten the power of detailing in telling a story. These new skills, plus the power of the new PC, will enable me to generate a more in-depth dimension to my work in the future.

More information about the new release and the band here

KMFDM Krank – new band artwork

I was asked by Sascha Konietsko of KMFDM to come up with a band illustration for their new album, Krank. Using several photos of the band onstage from their last tour, I spent a couple of weeks sketching the various members before building the scene in 3D and lighting it accordingly.

I then inked the individual characters before scanning them in and finishing off in Illustrator.

Details of the new album here

Art and Ideas by Aidan Hughes