zhao ft guess who - ne mai vedem - song cover art

 So happy to finally share this here. I made this artwork a while ago and after worrying too much about not getting it right, as I always do, once it was done it quickly became one of my favorite pieces. The illustration was made as a cover art for a song called "Ne mai vedem" (roughly translated as See you around) released by Zhao & Guess Who, two very talented Romanian musicians. The song is about the cycle of life, of the journey we go through our lives, from being playful, innocent kids, to responsible adults, carrying life's weights and lessons over our shoulders, to appreciating our parents more when we finally become parents to our own children. This is it in a nutshell. But I think that if you give it a listen you'll find out what it means to you. So I collaborated with Zhao on this design, he had this idea of an hourglass with a kid on one side, falling into a man on the other. We had a few tries, and a few versions of the same concept were made, and I have to say, I kind of like each and every one of them. 

Sadly, the artwork wasn't used in the end, but I'm thankful I managed to reach a new milestone with this project: I finally got to play more with the digital watercolor brushes and I'm super glad I'm getting the hang of it. Also happy that we've finally reached a point where they look realistic enough. All in all, I hope they repurpose these graphics somehow because I think they'd make for some pretty awesome prints (as you'll see in the mock-ups I've made below).

What do you think? Which one's your favorite?

Also, one of the processes behind the paper (digital paper that is) is already up on my Instagram account, so go check that out. Also, also... if you want to check the music out, here's where you can do that (I know it's a link to a different song, but you have all the streaming platforms where you can find all their music).