This cover was inspired by the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth" starring David Bowie. Bowie plays an alien character with a human appearance and there's this awesome part in the film where one of the characters gets an x-ray camera and sees the alien he really is inside, under the layers of human flesh. I took that idea and formed it into a metaphor, that under our soft skin there is this ticking. The person one may present on the outside, isn't the same on the inside and that's what my character Jung is. Jung is on the cover and he wears a mask to cover the scars of his past. On the outside he looks calm and quiet, but inside he has this raging storm of self-hatred. If one could take a camera and scan through all his layers, the pain he feels would be revealed. But technology is unable to read emotions well, and humans are the masters of making oneself look happier than we really are.
I used colored pencil on black paper. Usually, I go for watercolor because colored pencil takes too long, but I wanted to add more realism. The paper is bit textured to add the emphasis of a disturbed past. Jung has had a rough life and I wanted to show that visually.
The bicycle, train, guitar, dragon, and other weird things that are going on the picture are inspired by the film, "Paprika". I love surrealism and Satoshi Kon films and wanted to add to the chaos that Jung experiences in his life. Jung is very similar to Walter Mitty. He has an unusual imagination and often gets in trouble for daydreaming too much. He gets distracted easily as he sees imaginary worlds that no one else can see. He literally lives in his own head and it takes a lot of effort to bring him back to reality. Of course, his imagination is a sign of his intelligence as he is more creative than others, but many people don't see it as such as he is often spaced out in conversations. That's what I like about Jung, and this is all I have to say about my cover
