i think there's still a few copies of Issue 3 of music fanzine @Speakeasy_Zine available, featuring my portrait of @matt_james100 of @gene_band on the cover. It's only £1, so fantastic value & they also offer a great subscription package too!
A short thread on the design

I was asked if I were able to create a cover image to accompany their interview with Matt, as a huge gene fan I was v happy to
I wanted to create an image that was immediately recognisable & obvious as being 'Gene' related, but focussed on Matt rather than the band or lead singer

As their 2nd album, Drawn to the Deep end, was their best known and luckily had their strongest sleeve design, this was the obvious choice for me. And also suited my need as it had a single focus point. I just needed to adapt it to include Matt rather than the original image.

I just needed a strong clear image of Matt as my reference. However, as Matt was the drummer, he suffered from rhythm section rules i.e. Stood at the back of every photoshoot, so not as easy as you'd think
Luckily I had lots of photos as I own each album in 3 formats

Another problem is a lot of pr shots are cropped , like the example below. But eventually I found an uncropped strong image of Matt looking into camera in the sleeve notes of a CD which I could use.

I then created a painted portrait of Matt wearing the ushers jacket from the Drawn to the Deep end sleeve, adjusting the shadows on both aspects so it made a bit more sense lighting wise. This was painted at a larger scale than needed for the mag, so it could be shrunk to size

It was then scanned and added to a simple digital background id made in adobe, changing the film on the cinema screen to a quick Olympian album sleeve art painting to reinforce the relevancy and branding and added the fanzine nameplate to finish the cover design

thats it. Just thought someone might be interested in the process involved in creating the cover design and as I say there are still a few copies available and it's full of great articles, fantastic interviews and a lot of passion about music!

Matt very kindly sent me a signed copy of the image, as well as signing a 2nd copy for the fanzine prize.
My original painting is now with Matt