Be a Rocker

I was sorting out files in my old hard disk when I found this illustration I did last year.
It was a heavy metal rock logo done for a local indie band.
Heavy metal and rock is totally not my kind of thing so this work was considered pretty memorable to me.
Anyway, I'm going to share the process stage for this work.

References

Gathering references is a really important stage, especially when you are working on unfamiliar stuffs. I did a quick google on the band and also other related styles. It is good to keep an archives of images you come across on the internet, you never know when you are gonna need them. For this project I collected hundreds of pictures as references before I start work.

Concept

I did many sketches on paper, to get a rough overall look of the logo before I go digital.

It's okay to go really rough and sketchy here, and draw as much as you can.

 The important thing is probably the composition and layout of the work. (Which is actually pretty bad here as well. lol)

Production

I did the inking digitally, and then add in more details bit by bit. I was almost done in the 2nd picture when I feel that it was still too clean and simple, so I added shadows in the end, to avoid the flatness and give it a more pop out feel.

The eventual design looks more sketchy as well but I still think I should have inked it with a more freehand style, as this design I did with hard straight lines just feel too clean and rigid.

Final Look

The wings changed in the final design as a spread out wings gives more width and more power.

Alternate Look

I did an alternate look with a pink background to push the white colored image out more.