I have trouble with believing it's the same guy as Fear of Dark. From a great atmospheric picture with superb details, colour and light, to a teen-cartoon.I'll give you that TFF doesn't look like Eddie, that's definitely a flaw, but nevertheless I still really like the artwork.
I have trouble with believing it's the same guy as Fear of Dark. From a great atmospheric picture with superb details, colour and light, to a teen-cartoon.
This forum wouldn't exist if they could!). But yeah, just like with setlists, songwriting and tour schedules, Maiden can't win with album covers.
Pretty much how I feel. TFF looks 'classic' enough to me but has a nice modern twist. I like looking at it.The Final Frontier is not all that distinct from the covers from the eighties, stylistically. Grant has displayed that he has a very distinct idea of Eddie than Riggs had, and he displayed that with Fear of the Dark already. Now he did a cover that compromises between an eighties cartoon style as the covers of the day were (which everybody has been whining to get back), and wanting to create something that doesn't just rip off earlier achievements (which everybody would have complained about in the end).
Melvyn Grant is quite capable of achieving that 80s/90's Maiden art feel. I think he captured it pretty well with the Benjamin Breeg sleeve. Possibly the sleeve in the last 15 - 20 years that captures the original Eddie the best:
But on studio album covers every artist since Fear of The Dark have really tried to put their own spin on Eddie...and well, Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death and Brave New World sleeves tried to avoid him all together! It's no easy task to re-imagine such a celebrated figure in music/metal culture.
What I lack the most from the recent Maiden sleeves is an actual Eddie that, I don't know, looks menacing again
I forgot about that one, cracking bit of artwork imo. It's done in a more realistic style, which I find more up to date, but I see a couple of nods to older IM artwork there too - the bare tree branches/full moon are reminiscent of FOTD, the gravestone of Live After Death, and the long haired Eddie of the earlier days.