This image went thru a number of revisions before arriving at this point. My original thought was that love (arrow) destroys or cuts thru dreams represented by the white horse. I envisioned the white horse being drawn sort of fluid and gestural and the arrow being hard edged and more graphic. The black roses added some additional motion to the picture and help fill out the background. The overall feel I'm going for is surreal, dreamy romanticism which I picked up on from some of Jack's recent live shows. Specifically, the "Temporary Ground" performance on Conan.
Ok, so at this point I know what I want to do so I blocked in a quick rough for both Rob and Jack to see. Jack responded with: "this could be a cool sort of emblem/logo if the horse was winced back in pain with an arrow through him that has fletching (feathers) at the left side. i like it."
Rob then referenced some past prints I did with smoky elements in them and suggested I go in that direction for the final. The horse ended up being built out of isolated smoke pieces that were layered and built up to achieve the result you see here. I hadn't really done something exactly like this before but it wasn't out of my wheelhouse either. I attached my first pass at it here complete with notes from Rob. I jokingly referred to his marks as a souped up version of a Tecmo Bowl playbook. Hopefully, this details some of the collaborative process for you all.
