Sepultura covers (albums and singles) by Michael Whelan. Michael’s comments are in italics.

NIGHTMARE IN RED (1981) - Cover for Beneath the Remains, the band’s third studio album. The image was originally the cover illustration for Tales from the Nightside by Charles L. Grant.

ARISE (1990) - Original painting for the band’s fourth studio album. The single “Dead Embryonic Cells” and “Under Siege” use a detail from the painting for their covers.

CACOPHONY (1992) - Original painting for Chaos A.D., the fifth studio album. The cover of the single “Territory” was an early digital piece.

I took a class in NYC to learn how to use Photoshop way back when [I think it was Photoshop 4 we were using!]. While I waited for some of the newbies to learn how to press cntl/alt/click or whatever, I stayed in the back and worked on this piece, which ended up being used for the “Territory” cover. I had painted the “S” logo and the rocks but then I scanned them in and fiddled around with filters and cloning and stuff to make the firey background.

ROOTS (1996) - A digital painting for the band’s sixth studio album.

The concept for ROOTS was largely Max Cavalera’s idea. He wanted me to paint the face off of a denomination of Brazilian paper money [I don’t remember what bill it was] and just put in some kind of background. I tried to digitally paint the face off the bill, then fooled around with some photos I had taken of tree branches and stuff till I came up with a background I thought might work.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)