NEW Derek Riggs Artwork for IM

pilau

pilau

Nomad
Hey everyone, I noticed that on the IM shop there's a new shirt on sale with Flight 666 artwork by Derek Riggs. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he say he will never again make anything for Maiden because working with them is a hard time? If they're back working together, then the next album artwork could be by him! Imagine that!  :bigsmile:
 
He said something something in this context quite some years ago (probably in the nineties?),

Since then he did several artworks, e.g. the Eddie on the BNW cover.
 
Yes but that Eddie on BNW was painted in the very late 90s and that was the last piece he made for Maiden. Could this be a new era of Maiden-Riggs collaboration?
 
Yeah, haha, that's what I thought too. I also reckon that even artworks by Riggs released after BMW were made before the year 2000.
 
I see there is a bit of confusion with that issue. To the best of my memory, this is what happened:

With Fear of the Dark, Maiden first used a different artist from Riggs, but did further collaborate with him until the X-Factor era. My personal theory, but don't cite this as a fact, is that they dropped him because his work at that time plain sucked. I can't find the quality of his 80's work in pictures like A Real Live One or Hallowed Be Thy Name, and I think he got really tired of drawing Eddie. But this is opinion, not fact.
Riggs did sporadic work for Maiden, like the Virus LP single, the Best Of The Beast cover, the Angel And The Gambler single and some other work that did not get very much attention. When Bruce and H returned, Maiden wanted to go full circle and got Riggs to paint the cover for the new single. However, according to Riggs, they told him the new album would be called The Wicker Man, and he prepared artwork based on that concept. In the end, however, Maiden only used the "cloud Eddie" from that artwork and dropped the rest, replacing it by the CGI city. Riggs got pissed off by this and said that he would never work with Maiden again. Incidentally, the actual Wickerman single used artwork by Mark Wilkinson.

This is the original artwork he had done:

stone1.jpg


stone2.jpg


stone3.jpg


wickalbm.jpg


Although some undated Riggs artwork appeared in the Eddie's Archive box set, none of Riggs' art appeared on official Maiden releases from Rock in Rio on, although the Matter of Life and Death tour used a new Riggs painting as a backdrop for These Colours Don't Run. This picture also appeared on the cover of Riggs' biography, which was promoted on the official Iron Maiden website, and there were some other activities in which he was involved. I guess it's safe to say they settled their differences, but I wouldn't put my money on new album covers by Riggs.
 
He also did a bunch of illustrations for the SBIT tour - the Powerslave variant with SIT and SSOASS Eddies at the sides of the pyramid, the "remastered" SIT Eddie from the cover of the SBIT album, and a few event t-shirts (Bangalore, Los Angeles etc). And oh yes, the cover for Flight 666 is also his work.

So, who knows, maybe they'll let him do the next album cover.
 
Enough examples to show that they are good friends again, at least in terms of working together.

I love those The Wicker Man artworks.
 
Aye, would be interesting to see Riggs do another album cover, but I really think he should have done AMOLAD.  Just the final touch to an amazing album.  But then again, the AMOLAD cover is already pretty good, so I don't know what he'd have done with it.
 
According to people who (apparently) know Riggs, he has a bizarre sense of humour, and some of his quotes about hating Maiden, never doing the artwork again, etc are not meant to be taken literally ;)
I'm willing to bet this is the reason, as its rather strange for someone to hate the very band that brought him fame and then to constantly do backflips for money.
 
Well, Faith No More HATED, seriously HATED each other, yet they still made albums and millions in the process... so i don't think liking someone is a must for a business relationship.
 
No idea, but it's definitely not Derek - See the autograph at the bottom right? not his.
It's probably a gesture towards the SBIT tour.
 
gulranek said:
He also did a bunch of illustrations for the SBIT tour - the Powerslave variant with SIT and SSOASS Eddies at the sides of the pyramid, the "remastered" SIT Eddie from the cover of the SBIT album, and a few event t-shirts (Bangalore, Los Angeles etc). And oh yes, the cover for Flight 666 is also his work.

So, who knows, maybe they'll let him do the next album cover.
Click to expand...

From what I've seen, the only new Riggs work as of late actually used was the SBIT piece and the Flight:666 piece...I don't recall Riggs doing a LA event shirt.
 
Derek Riggs's art not used on the next Maiden album

Last Friday, someone posted this on the official forum:

There's been a lot of talk lately about the next cover and will Derek Riggs be doing the cover or not. Up until recently, Derek was being considered and had been submitting sketches for the artwork for the next album.

I spoke with Derek today and, unfortunately, they will not be using him for the artwork for the next album. He gave me permission to pass this along if anyone was interested. So I decided to post it here so, even though it's sad news to most of us, at least no one will be anticipating it, only to be let down later on.

Sad day....for a friend of mine...and most fans who were hoping for a return of the REAL Eddie on the next album.
 
Those Wickerman images are unbelieveable! Thanks for sharing Perun (along with the story to go along with it).

I'm not sure which image I like best, but I think the 2nd one with the flames and cloud above seems to capture something I can't even put into words. (And normally I'm not one to be at a loss for words.)

As much as the teaser image we're all seeing on the IM site is cool and gets us worked up for a big announcement, the image itself doesn't really do much for me. Again it's cool, but it has a corporate, CGI-feel to it that you don't (obviously) get when you look at the Riggs images Perun posted.

Let's hope for an album cover that is more human (in-human) and less CGI.
 
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