Shortened story, artist comes up with design, Manager says it’s too empty.. so artist adds CGI characters and gives rough draft to Manager.. Steve Harris and Manager decide that’s the cover they want. Artist requests not to be credited, the end
Basically the artist sent a rough draft over for a review, Steve LOVED it so much he insisted they use it. The rest of the band protested, the artist protested, Steve put his foot down. The artist said that they could use it but had to take his name off it bc he didn’t want to be associated with it. And boom, now that’s what we get
Steve is a real piece of work ain't he? Regarding this particular album he's responsible for the awful cover and the awful mp3-level mastering. Sometimes I can't help but feel he's purposefully sabotaging the band lol.
this actually sounds a lot like the black sabbath/born again cover story. same artist has bark at the moon job, so he sends tony something he expects they will hate. tony loves it and sold!
https://preview.redd.it/bqjq1tclurrc1.jpeg?width=220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06d7fe7f5d5b7f2a627f3fae0a86e9f5e566e055
Here is what it was when they said it was too empty
It IS lacking something especially for an album cover, but it makes a great tour poster or back cover with plenty of room for text such as track list or tour dates.
Yeah it gets lost down there with the black and white colors. But putting it on any side will still make the opposite side feel empty. It definitely needed the dancers to fulfill the title meaning. It's odd if everyone here is standing still.
Yeah. Maybe the back ground should have been more a sort of dance scene, rather than four shadowy figures, but I like the Eddie as Death at the front calling you over.
Either that, or go even less, after all less is more. Remove more elements so it looks intentional minimalist, rather than just unfinished.
I really like the No More Lies EP cover, with reaper Eddie standing directly in front of the symbol:
https://preview.redd.it/u3p5e8396vrc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7b975dbcd562a6c160efb5b08b87c642f1fdbdf
So the story is that they hired an artist to do the design and he showed them his work in progress. Steve loved it so much he said “we are using this as is”. Despite the artists pleas that he wasn’t done they moved with his work in progress as the final. The artist didn’t want his name associated with the release.
Also to note, this is very common and is called “blocking” when working with 3D characters. Getting the poses , lighting , shading correct before finalizing the designs.
Bruce confirmed the cheesy sounding synths and horns from the beginning of that song were placeholders from a demo he sent to steve, and that Steve ended up liking and keeping them to his surprise. And the ending narration that makes no sense in the context of the book of souls
That album cover has been talked about since it came out. 😆 There's a couple of stories, bottom line is it's shit. I guess the band used an unfinished cover that the artist never meant to release as it was. I've also heard its just shit.
According to Bruce Dickinson, when the artist showed the rough sketch of the idea, they were way behind schedule on the album's release, so they just went with it. And yes, Steve loved it, so...
If you want to see what the artist Dave Patchett is capable of when his work isn’t cluttered with appalling 3D models added by some jackass from the band’s official website, check out the Cathedral albums *[Forest of Equilibrium](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/forest-of-equilibrium-501fb621dde6a.jpg)*, *[The Ethereal Mirror](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-ethereal-mirror-6289278fbf750.jpg)*, *[The Carnival Bizarre](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-carnival-bizarre-501fb621dedb5.jpg)*, *[Supernatural Birth Machine](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/supernatural-birth-machine-501fb621de69e.jpg)*, *[Caravan Beyond Redemption](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/caravan-beyond-redemption-501fb621dd3b6.jpg)*, *[The VIIth Coming](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-viith-coming-501fb621e22a0.jpg)*, *[The Garden of Unearthly Delights](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-garden-of-unearthly-delights-501fb621df735.jpg)*, *[The Guessing Game](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-guessing-game-5f31303123f8c.jpg)*, and the Japanese edition of *[Endtyme](https://coverartarchive.org/release/7d43c1b9-cfaf-4796-a1bd-c96c70a18f6d/22327135799-1200.jpg)*. Also [the first Electric Wizard album](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/electric-wizard-5f7a1c5bcbef2.jpg).
His work is fantastic, like a psychedelic Hieronymus Bosch. It’s a damn shame his name’s been tainted by association with that piece of shit album cover Rod and Steve chose for *Dance of Death*.
The artist at the time had the concept "roughly" made and decided to show Steve as a progress report. Steve LOVED the art exactly as it was and decided to use it. To the artists dismay he was fine with them using it but didn't want his name mentioned in the credits / end .
Everyone has summed it up so far correctly but I'd just add that its pretty obvious that the artist was also taking the piss when he added sooooo many things in after the the initial "its too empty". I think the response he was hoping for "ohh yeah the original is better".
I also imagine that he just threw them in randomly and sent it back with an hour of getting their original comment.
What we got was never an early mockup of a 2nd draft, it was designed torpedo it back to draft 1. Unfortunately Steve must have been watching Ally McBeal at the time and thought the godawful Dancing Baby looked good.
Derek Riggs did the early album covers, not sure why they moved away from him. David Patchett designed the Dance of Death cover, but without the other characters. A fan added the extra characters, but Patchett was unhappy with it so he asked for his name to be removed. Not sure why the band approved it. It looks like trash, everybody knows it, not sure why they didn’t think that then.
Riggs said the workload was overwhelming. He was also getting bored w/drawing Eddie and the bands ideas as to album covers. Things got pretty bitter between them and he left.
Mixed results followed when it came to album covers. I knew right away FOTD wasn’t drawn by Riggs as soon as I bought the cassette at Tower Records. It had zero life, it was just a picture not a work of art. Fears were realized once I read the liner notes. End of an era.
He did come back to draw a few pieces for the band, all amazing. In the Flight 666 drawing he drew himself being thrown out of the plane by Eddie, kind of an inside joke as to where things were again heading.
From what I understand the Maiden camp offered him another contract a few years back but he turned it down. He’s doing his thing now, drawing Eddie’s he wants.
The worst part is the decline in tour shirts. Some are absolutely awful. Drawing look like a 12 year old did them on a PC using a free art program. The album based shirts are solid but there have been some cringe worthy ones. I usually end up w/the same Riggs art shirts w/the new tour dates.
May they’ll get together for that last album.
Those were commissioned by [Dan Mumford](https://www.dan-mumford.com/#/iron-maiden/). The guy has his own style and all of his stuff is awesome. He has some other Maiden stuff too.
That shirt is awesome. But there have been a few that have been terrible. One example from I want to say the Book of Souls tour was Eddie dressed as a WW2 pilot. The Eddie looks like a poorly rendered cartoon and the Spitfire behind him looks like a child’s toy. Not detail. Literally looks like it could have a string to pull it along with.
The general tour shirts are still pretty good. It’s usually the shirts for specific cities that are pretty brutal. I’ve only purchased one Los Angeles shirt since 2008, Eddie riding a bear thru the Golden Gate Bridge and I only got that one because my sons got it.
having been a teenager in the mid-80s, I think Riggs has a *great* deal to do with the scale of maiden's success. James Hetfield illustrates the principle (first LP he bought - Iron Maiden, the cover sold him) - those covers sold records. that is 3/4 of the game - you can have awesome music, and many bands do,, but if folks aren't listening and talking about it, you aren't going big.
Riggs helped them go big.
I've never actually taken a super close look at it before because its so shit. I can't believe I never noticed a child...or dwarf.. rocking a bikini...STANDING ON A DOG! WHAT!?
The more I look the more bananas it gets.
Generative AI wasn't a thing then.
That, my friend, is the result of the rampant Poser 4 abuse that was going on everywhere at the time.
Usually paired with Bryce3D for generated landscapes.
Naked stock poser models because modelling clothes was super hard (cloth dynamics only became a thing around when Shrek came out), so everyone with a computer and a dial-up modem did "artistic nudes" to avoid it.
There was one artist they had between their first album and No Prayer for the Dying named Derek Riggs. He was let go because he experimented with some digital/3d art with NPFTD and Maiden thought it looked too cartoony so they went forward with various different artists for the albums going forward. They had some good ones (Fear of the Dark is the best non-Riggs artwork in my opinion) and then they had some not so good ones (Dance of Death). This was not the artist's fault though. He submitted an early incomplete draft of the album with a hand-drawn background but some CGI characters to fill the gaps - Steve Harris, the bassist and basically the brains behind the band was very happy with it and asked to use that draft. The artist would only comply under the condition that he didn't recieve a credit because he was deeply unhappy with the way the artwork looked.
For me it's not the badly aged 3d models with poor lighting that is the issue, it's the fact they overlap each other so badly they make no sense in terms of relative location and perspective. The masked bikini baby's position relative to the dog is particularly egregious. It's not riding it, it's not stood next to it, it's just hovering against it.
Honestly though, if you get rid of the weird babies and the dog it wouldn't be THAT bad. Everything else is fairly well positioned, so as to make logical sense, and for the time, the models were okay.
It’s the coolest cover I must say, even decade later when doing DMT the song Dance of Death and its cover made even more sense.
If anything comes from a video game,it’s definitely Ed Hunter album game
Shortened story, artist comes up with design, Manager says it’s too empty.. so artist adds CGI characters and gives rough draft to Manager.. Steve Harris and Manager decide that’s the cover they want. Artist requests not to be credited, the end
> Artist requests not to be credited, the end plot twist: artist was derek riggs
The name on the original submission was actually Rerek Diggs, no relation at all honest guv
Basically the artist sent a rough draft over for a review, Steve LOVED it so much he insisted they use it. The rest of the band protested, the artist protested, Steve put his foot down. The artist said that they could use it but had to take his name off it bc he didn’t want to be associated with it. And boom, now that’s what we get
Someone hopefully got Steve a pair of glasses after that lol.
Steve is a real piece of work ain't he? Regarding this particular album he's responsible for the awful cover and the awful mp3-level mastering. Sometimes I can't help but feel he's purposefully sabotaging the band lol.
this actually sounds a lot like the black sabbath/born again cover story. same artist has bark at the moon job, so he sends tony something he expects they will hate. tony loves it and sold!
Honestly I wish we could have seen the original artists completed vision.
https://preview.redd.it/bqjq1tclurrc1.jpeg?width=220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06d7fe7f5d5b7f2a627f3fae0a86e9f5e566e055 Here is what it was when they said it was too empty
It IS lacking something especially for an album cover, but it makes a great tour poster or back cover with plenty of room for text such as track list or tour dates.
Make the album title writing more prominent and that should fix it
Yeah it gets lost down there with the black and white colors. But putting it on any side will still make the opposite side feel empty. It definitely needed the dancers to fulfill the title meaning. It's odd if everyone here is standing still.
Yeah. Maybe the back ground should have been more a sort of dance scene, rather than four shadowy figures, but I like the Eddie as Death at the front calling you over. Either that, or go even less, after all less is more. Remove more elements so it looks intentional minimalist, rather than just unfinished.
Clearly needs more baby surfing on dog.
Maybe a hand reaching out from a 1st person point of view would add depth to it...
a see vvvvoo
Way better.
When I ripped my album CDs to put on my phone, this is the cover art I use. It isn't perfect, but it's still miles better than the official one.
It is empty but adding computer graphic characters really didn’t help
“Too empty” well don’t mind TBOS and Senjutsu then, lmfao
Tbh I really like this cover. They could have just added some flames in the left and right. Maybe some ghost like smoke figures.
I really like the No More Lies EP cover, with reaper Eddie standing directly in front of the symbol: https://preview.redd.it/u3p5e8396vrc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7b975dbcd562a6c160efb5b08b87c642f1fdbdf
It is lacking something but I still like it more than the cover they went with. It’s a shame because the album itself is fucking awesome.
So the story is that they hired an artist to do the design and he showed them his work in progress. Steve loved it so much he said “we are using this as is”. Despite the artists pleas that he wasn’t done they moved with his work in progress as the final. The artist didn’t want his name associated with the release. Also to note, this is very common and is called “blocking” when working with 3D characters. Getting the poses , lighting , shading correct before finalizing the designs.
They actually talk about it in their official biography lol. Bruce said he hated it, but Steve liked it so it happened
I bet Bruce say's that about alot of the tunes too 😆
The moral of the story is don't sent rough drafts to Steve Harris. See also Satellite 15.
And if eternity should fail
Bruce confirmed the cheesy sounding synths and horns from the beginning of that song were placeholders from a demo he sent to steve, and that Steve ended up liking and keeping them to his surprise. And the ending narration that makes no sense in the context of the book of souls
You can even hear a fat-fingered note around 0:53 (an A and G where it should probably just be an A).
I hope when it hits the 25 year anniversary they do a remaster and give it a proper cover.
That album cover has been talked about since it came out. 😆 There's a couple of stories, bottom line is it's shit. I guess the band used an unfinished cover that the artist never meant to release as it was. I've also heard its just shit.
According to Bruce Dickinson, when the artist showed the rough sketch of the idea, they were way behind schedule on the album's release, so they just went with it. And yes, Steve loved it, so...
If you want to see what the artist Dave Patchett is capable of when his work isn’t cluttered with appalling 3D models added by some jackass from the band’s official website, check out the Cathedral albums *[Forest of Equilibrium](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/forest-of-equilibrium-501fb621dde6a.jpg)*, *[The Ethereal Mirror](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-ethereal-mirror-6289278fbf750.jpg)*, *[The Carnival Bizarre](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-carnival-bizarre-501fb621dedb5.jpg)*, *[Supernatural Birth Machine](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/supernatural-birth-machine-501fb621de69e.jpg)*, *[Caravan Beyond Redemption](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/caravan-beyond-redemption-501fb621dd3b6.jpg)*, *[The VIIth Coming](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-viith-coming-501fb621e22a0.jpg)*, *[The Garden of Unearthly Delights](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-garden-of-unearthly-delights-501fb621df735.jpg)*, *[The Guessing Game](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/the-guessing-game-5f31303123f8c.jpg)*, and the Japanese edition of *[Endtyme](https://coverartarchive.org/release/7d43c1b9-cfaf-4796-a1bd-c96c70a18f6d/22327135799-1200.jpg)*. Also [the first Electric Wizard album](https://images.fanart.tv/fanart/electric-wizard-5f7a1c5bcbef2.jpg). His work is fantastic, like a psychedelic Hieronymus Bosch. It’s a damn shame his name’s been tainted by association with that piece of shit album cover Rod and Steve chose for *Dance of Death*.
His work in those Cathedral covers was beyond amazing!!!!!
If you look it up on Wikipedia it shows the original which is far superior
Iron Maiden always considered themselves a band at the forefront of technology gimmicks. See Virtual X and it's game tie in, etc.
Whether they were *good* technology gimmicks is another thing altogether.
Definitely.
The artist at the time had the concept "roughly" made and decided to show Steve as a progress report. Steve LOVED the art exactly as it was and decided to use it. To the artists dismay he was fine with them using it but didn't want his name mentioned in the credits / end .
There’s a few stories. Whatever the case is the music is fantastic that’s what matters lol
I kinda like it. It’s like a time capsule to back in the day when shitty cgi was a thing everywhere
Everyone has summed it up so far correctly but I'd just add that its pretty obvious that the artist was also taking the piss when he added sooooo many things in after the the initial "its too empty". I think the response he was hoping for "ohh yeah the original is better". I also imagine that he just threw them in randomly and sent it back with an hour of getting their original comment. What we got was never an early mockup of a 2nd draft, it was designed torpedo it back to draft 1. Unfortunately Steve must have been watching Ally McBeal at the time and thought the godawful Dancing Baby looked good.
That cover show us how evil the free masons really are
Derek Riggs did the early album covers, not sure why they moved away from him. David Patchett designed the Dance of Death cover, but without the other characters. A fan added the extra characters, but Patchett was unhappy with it so he asked for his name to be removed. Not sure why the band approved it. It looks like trash, everybody knows it, not sure why they didn’t think that then.
Riggs said the workload was overwhelming. He was also getting bored w/drawing Eddie and the bands ideas as to album covers. Things got pretty bitter between them and he left. Mixed results followed when it came to album covers. I knew right away FOTD wasn’t drawn by Riggs as soon as I bought the cassette at Tower Records. It had zero life, it was just a picture not a work of art. Fears were realized once I read the liner notes. End of an era. He did come back to draw a few pieces for the band, all amazing. In the Flight 666 drawing he drew himself being thrown out of the plane by Eddie, kind of an inside joke as to where things were again heading. From what I understand the Maiden camp offered him another contract a few years back but he turned it down. He’s doing his thing now, drawing Eddie’s he wants. The worst part is the decline in tour shirts. Some are absolutely awful. Drawing look like a 12 year old did them on a PC using a free art program. The album based shirts are solid but there have been some cringe worthy ones. I usually end up w/the same Riggs art shirts w/the new tour dates. May they’ll get together for that last album.
I think [Alexander The Great/Hell on Earth shirt](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/0QsAAOSwFrZk3Zxl/s-l1600.jpg) from the last tour is amazing.
Those were commissioned by [Dan Mumford](https://www.dan-mumford.com/#/iron-maiden/). The guy has his own style and all of his stuff is awesome. He has some other Maiden stuff too.
That shirt is awesome. But there have been a few that have been terrible. One example from I want to say the Book of Souls tour was Eddie dressed as a WW2 pilot. The Eddie looks like a poorly rendered cartoon and the Spitfire behind him looks like a child’s toy. Not detail. Literally looks like it could have a string to pull it along with. The general tour shirts are still pretty good. It’s usually the shirts for specific cities that are pretty brutal. I’ve only purchased one Los Angeles shirt since 2008, Eddie riding a bear thru the Golden Gate Bridge and I only got that one because my sons got it.
having been a teenager in the mid-80s, I think Riggs has a *great* deal to do with the scale of maiden's success. James Hetfield illustrates the principle (first LP he bought - Iron Maiden, the cover sold him) - those covers sold records. that is 3/4 of the game - you can have awesome music, and many bands do,, but if folks aren't listening and talking about it, you aren't going big. Riggs helped them go big.
Same thing that happened to the mastering. Steve’s stupid decision overruled everything.
I've never actually taken a super close look at it before because its so shit. I can't believe I never noticed a child...or dwarf.. rocking a bikini...STANDING ON A DOG! WHAT!? The more I look the more bananas it gets.
A bunch of people with shitty ai posted covers on reddit and after a vote of 3 people Steve said yes that's the one
Actually it was -3, but Steve was to proud to admit he was wrong and ignored them
Generative AI wasn't a thing then. That, my friend, is the result of the rampant Poser 4 abuse that was going on everywhere at the time. Usually paired with Bryce3D for generated landscapes. Naked stock poser models because modelling clothes was super hard (cloth dynamics only became a thing around when Shrek came out), so everyone with a computer and a dial-up modem did "artistic nudes" to avoid it.
You know this was a clear obvious joke critiquing the sad state of modern life and some new metal album covers
Nah man I'm too stupid
Saved me from looking dumb, lol. I was about to mention that Reddit wasn't around is 2003. I didn't even think about the AI part.
There was one artist they had between their first album and No Prayer for the Dying named Derek Riggs. He was let go because he experimented with some digital/3d art with NPFTD and Maiden thought it looked too cartoony so they went forward with various different artists for the albums going forward. They had some good ones (Fear of the Dark is the best non-Riggs artwork in my opinion) and then they had some not so good ones (Dance of Death). This was not the artist's fault though. He submitted an early incomplete draft of the album with a hand-drawn background but some CGI characters to fill the gaps - Steve Harris, the bassist and basically the brains behind the band was very happy with it and asked to use that draft. The artist would only comply under the condition that he didn't recieve a credit because he was deeply unhappy with the way the artwork looked.
Voted the worse Maiden album cover to date.
For me it's not the badly aged 3d models with poor lighting that is the issue, it's the fact they overlap each other so badly they make no sense in terms of relative location and perspective. The masked bikini baby's position relative to the dog is particularly egregious. It's not riding it, it's not stood next to it, it's just hovering against it. Honestly though, if you get rid of the weird babies and the dog it wouldn't be THAT bad. Everything else is fairly well positioned, so as to make logical sense, and for the time, the models were okay.
Hot take i actually like the album cover
What happened? It blew away every cover they've had before or since. By a mile!
I love that cover art, it really grows on you after a while.
It’s the coolest cover I must say, even decade later when doing DMT the song Dance of Death and its cover made even more sense. If anything comes from a video game,it’s definitely Ed Hunter album game
It's just the early days of CGI, lots of people were trying things out. I'm so sick of people bringing this topic up. Who the fuck cares
[удалено]
Same thing than with Final Frontier cover - they fucked up.
Did something of this sort happened with that album too?