I was wondering this the other day when I was at a local record store and I went to the seciton where they had all the heavy metal and stuff, and I came across Fear Of The Dark, and I was just like "wow" when you really look at the amount of detail on the covers you really think, who drew this, and whos idea was it to have such a creative picture on an albums front. And every album is different too, some of the different ideas they come up with are truly amazing!
Here I was, thinking it was common knowledge... Every single Maiden artwork from 1980 to 1990 was painted by Derek Riggs, who really is a legend in the heavy metal world. Fear Of The Dark was the first cover not painted by Riggs; this one was made by Melvyn Grant. Ever since, Riggs has only worked for Maiden sporadically, officially quitting in 2000, but he has painted some Maiden illustrations since; the same goes for Grant, who as far as I know also painted the Virtual XI cover. But from the mid-90's on, various artists have worked for Maiden.
I keep posting the wrong things, I just wanted to know who creates the album covers, know I know and I will never ask again!
Iron Maiden, Killers and Number of the Beast; Clive Burr Piece of Mind ---> The X Factor: Nicko McBrain Virtual XI: Steve Harris Brave New World ----> A Matter Of Life And Death: Nicko McBrain Duh.
Since Riggs left the only really great covers, IMO, are Death on the Road and Benjamin Breeg. The same guy Final Frontier, but it's not in the same vein. Way too many of the covers are really crappy CGI, including some of Riggs later stuff.
Since it's already bumped... What do you think about merits of doing covers old-school way, eg. hand-painting? I presume that using tablets and whole CGI stuff is more faster in terms of time to final product, hence uses less artist time overall, hence less money. Like at any other job, the aid of cheap and capable technology has increased total number of people doing that particular jobs, and they do it faster. Can manual painting artists survive their CGI competition? I assume that Riggs possibly could, he's an institution for himself, but someone less known and profiled...
album artwork just isn't important any more. A slower process would cost more money and it really won't boost sales. Maiden seems to be the only band who care about their artwork. As for the last question, I think they can. The reason for CGI is to save time and for the consumer, money. Hard labored hand painting comes out better and would look better on an album cover. Ask yourself this, are you more likely to buy a hand-drawn Somewhere in Time painting, or a computer drawn Final Frontier painting*? *I'm not saying the final frontier is bad artwork, I think it's their best in a long time, but SIT is simply a lot better.