Metal born from industry- Album cover

For my cover for the mighty Black Sabbath I focused on the birth of heavy metal which is said to have started in the Midlands in the 60s/70s where the metal industry with its foundries and mills where everywhere. The sound of the huge hammers beating metal into shape was said to be deafening and this happened all day every day combined with the smoke from the chimneys that some say you could taste the metal in the air.
 I settled on the idea of a demon/Satan coming out of a chimney as what would be the smoke from the foundry, this would be covering the town above but in the shape of the unholy one.

 So to start with roughs where done to help me decide on the layout of the scene. I have seen and worked in quite a few factories so I use this as a starting point to draw from. I quickly decided how I want this to look as I had been thinking about it as a idea for some time. I then decided to add a candle shape to one(top right) of the chimneys to see how this would look, i took this from the Vanitas paintings as it symbolises the pasting of life. And it adopts the surrealness of H.Bosch in creating a image with containt with hidden meaning in a semiotic value.
I really liked this idea and how it looked.

The bottom chimneys are based on the Tinsley Towers which used to great one on the M1 motorway to let you know you was nearly home. But sadly these are now gone and you have to look at meadow hall insead. 

Here is the last remaining mill from where i live in Guiseley, Leeds when i grew up here there was about 4 or 5 other big chimneys towering above the roof tops. but now there is just once this one. I was lucky enough to see it working last year. 

I was curious to see how acrylics paint would look to set the mood of the image. As i was working on cartridge paper that was not of a standard to take a beating me and a paint brush would give it this would take too long and it have to be careful with how i applied the paint, this is not how i like to use paint. So it was decided it would be coloured on photoshop. This would also save me time in changing and altering the colours if i needed to. 

Then i wanted to add more to the idea of Satan holding a skull, again taken from the  Vanitas meaning for death but used in a H.Bosch way as musical instruments are falling out of the skull, trying to imply that this is the Devil giving music back to the people to make themself be heard, there for giving them HEAVY METAL.

I had found the perfect image to build up.