Download Break the Cycle
Latest version: 1.0   (March 21, 2001)

The day after the skin for 'Blow' was approved by New Line and went online, I was asked to create a skin for hard rock group Staind's new album.

I was sent an image of the album's cover on a Wednesday - at the time, the album was going to be titled 'It's Been Awhile,' and the cover featured a photo of gears and a demolished background that looked like a still from a Tool video - and was told that they'd like the skin for the upcoming Monday. I worked through the weekend on it, and on Monday was told that the label had changed not only the title of the album, but also the album's artwork.

I had to start from scratch, and I had 9 hours to get it done.

The album's new cover was sent to me in extremely high-resolution. The picture was of a tree on a cold, hazy day. The image had been digitally enhanced in such a way that most of the detail was gone - the tree was slightly abstracted and almost remined me of stained glass. I built the skin out of fragments of extreme closeups of this image, later adding 'distressing artifacts' like edge bleeding and photo developer splashing to give it the grungy look of the original photo. Additional alterations were made to accomodate the areas where text, displays, and adjustment sliders would go.

While I was unable to lavish a great deal of time on it due to circumstances beyond my control, it came out nicely and very moody. It looks like a hybrid of shattered glass and a tissue culture on a microscope slide.