Final artwork. Inked by hand and colored in Adobe Illustrator
For the their new album, Paradise, KMFDM supremo, Sasha Konietsko, wanted an artwork that would inspire hope in a world torn apart by tribal rivalries and hatred. As both of us are family men, it seemed appropriate to create an image that would illustrate our state of mind concerning the future of our children and immediately this post-apocalyptic scene popped into my head. Hold them close, teach them well and maybe their generation can accomplish that which we did not.
Sketch one based on an idea by Sascha Konietsko. I originally saw it as a Mad Max-meets-Social Realism propaganda piece but, as the backstory to the scenario grew in my mind, I could see it becoming something more meaningful.Secondary sketch. Still with the message of hope I wished to create fresh in my mind, I replaced the corny heroism for a quieter dynamic and tried to capture the relationship between father and daughter.Third sketch. I decided to use a reverse symmetrical angle of the father and daughter to indicate the connection between this scenario and my earlier artwork for KMFDM’s Salvation album in which a young warrior rescues an unconscious woman from the ruins of a destroyed city.In this initial pencil sketch, the main character had a bow, a knife and a pistol. These were all subsequently removed when Sascha and I agreed that they should be entering the future without weapons.One of a series of alternative colour and background combinations. The sky in this version was considered too busy and replaced in the final illustration by a huge sun.This image from the album, Salvation, ties in with the one from the Paradise cover in that the woman the young warrior rescues from the ruined city is the mother of his daughter in the new illustration
