GRAPHIC VIOLENCE: DEMON HUNTER'S RYAN CLARK ON CREATING OUR APOCALYPTIC LAMB OF GOD COVER

For this blog, I wanted to show you how I turned some ordinary photographs of Lamb of God into the apocalyptic images that grace the cover and feature pages of Revolver magazine's April 2009 issue. The concept for these images goes in line with the overarching theme behind the band's new album, Wrath, which is, in short, all things end-times: plagues, pestilence, locusts, hail, blood red skies, and rivers, etc.

For the cover specifically, the direction was to place the band in a swarm of locusts, with a sky of deep red looming in the background. For this image, I was able to keep most of the photo intact and just add the locusts. I also wanted to add a horizon line comprised of steeples and old-world architecture. All in all, this image was pretty cut and dry. The most tedious part of the process was accurately cutting out the locusts and placing them into the image.

The image for the feature opener was much more in-depth. At one point, I was very unsure of my capabilities to execute the concept that I was given for this image, which was to place the band in front of a parted Red Sea, in the midst of a hail storm, with dead bodies strewn about. As a compromise, the magazine allowed me to use skulls and bones as opposed to bodies (which are hard to come by, when perusing stock photo sites).

The first thing I did was grab a few screen captures of some images I thought would work for the background. Then I crudely placed them together in a Photoshop document to see if they were going to work (in terms of perspective, composition, etc). Once I knew which photos would work, I downloaded the high-resolution versions and got to work.

I started with the background. I found a great wave that would work pretty well for a "parted sea" look. The challenge was getting it to look like it was rising from land and not water. I found a great image of a beach with a little bit of tide coming in, and I flipped it backwards to make it look like the wave was coming right off the shore. I mirrored this portion, then changed a few parts on the other side so that it didn't just look like an exact copy. That is a key to photo-illustration: If you copy something (which is commonly expected), change it a little bit so that it doesn't just look like a copy.

Next I worked on the rock formations in the foreground. This was challenging because the band was standing on grass, and parts of their feet were covered, parts that I had to recreate. Also, I had to place accurate shadows on the rocks so it looked like I didn't just slap the band on. Shadows and lighting are another huge hey to making this stuff look real.

Finally, I added a little smoke and a little hail, and began to color-correct the image. Coloring these images is what really brings them to life. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people try to do this sort of thing and blow it on the coloring. It's best to give the image an overall vibe (in this case, I wanted it to look cold and wet), so I went with a blue and green color scheme. However, I didn't just colorize the whole thing. You have to keep certain hues in the image (skin tones, etc.) in order for it to look lifelike.

Alas, the images were done and our friends at Revolver were pleased. As huge fans of the magazine (and Lamb Of God) we were very honored to work on the images for this issue. Hope you enjoy them!