here's all the badass artists i could find/think of for album art, merch, etc.

not in any specific order...

http://www.myspace.com/szpajdelserbiastreetteam - this is a street team page for Christophe Szpajdel, but his (private) page is the first on the top. he does sick metal logos, usually for free (although it's been a few years since we've been in touch with him). his most famous logo is Emperor's, but he also did the triangular WFOF logo we used to use, as well as logos for Enfold Darkness, Inferi, A Loathing Requiem, and i'm pretty sure he did the new Abigail Williams logo, as it looks like his style.

http://www.onyxmoon.net - cool ass dude from Nashville. never worked with him, but i really like his stuff

http://www.discordantart.com - site is down til november
http://www.myspace.com/discordantart - this guy does a lot of designs for Salt The Wound (a band known for having craxy awesome merch), and he's done 2 for WFOF, including the shirt we had in Hot Topic.

http://www.riddickart.com - he does all the Arsis art

http://www.myspace.com/davequiggle - he does art for Facedown Records

http://www.myspace.com/flesheatingplague - we got a design from him a long time ago. he also did the splatter logo we used on our last batch of stickers.

http://www.myspace.com/executebrand - i couldn't find his design site, but he's local and has done work for Lioplurodon.

http://www.myspace.com/shout - Andrew Core. he'll either kill me or thank me for posting this, but he does some pretty good photoshopped designs. he's done several for WFOF, Enfold Darkness, and Lioplurodon. possibly more that i don't know of. i don't know how much he charges, but i'm sure it's on a client by client basis. haha, just don't have a time table in mind...

the rest of these are just other random design sites i've come across you might be interested in.

http://www.myspace.com/destroyerart

http://www.myspace.com/bloodmoondesigns

http://www.myspace.com/bluetideproductions

http://www.myspace.com/zombiedesigns666

http://www.myspace.com/fbmdesign

LASTLY!!!!!!

http://www.myspace.com/beforehisfall - Jeffrey Wagner, probably the single sickest artist we've ever worked with. he's done 2 designs for WFOF so far, including the newest one we have of the cyclops wrestling the hydra. the bad part, he's a huge, and i mean HUGE, dick about things. this site is pretty barren from the looks of things, but here's some of his work: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=beforehisfall&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

here's proof of how much of a dick he can be...
http://bhfscrewsbands.blogspot.com/

we had a very similar story to all of the ones listed on there, typed up and ready to post, but due to last minute apologies from Mr. Wagner, we decided to end our smear campaign against him, but will still probably never ask him for work again. i'm mainly including this just so everyone is familiar with him and knows what to expect. because he normally takes on bigger clients, i don't know how eager he'd be to work with unsigned bands anyway, but i believe his reputation has cost him business lately, so who knows?

Mike Bohatch is probably one of my favorites...
Superb quality imagery with a fair pricetag.

http://www.eyesofchaos.com

Zach Hobbs. Did the Bathtub Gin LP. Has done LOTS of work for LOTS of cool bands. He is very cool, very reasonable, and very tall. He is also in chatt.

http://www.myspace.com/zacharyhobbs

also, check this shit. I can almost guarantee he has done a poster or something for a band you think is awesome.

http://www.gigposters.com/designerposte ... Hobbs.html

Tom Denney= Badass artist= a bit pricey

www.myspace.com/bakulasaves

http://www.tomdenney.com/

that guy is sick. he reminds me of John Baizley, and sure enough he's got him in his top. not to mention some other sick artists. i'll go ahead and link here for reference

http://www.myspace.com/johndyerbaizley

http://www.myspace.com/ryankasparian

http://www.myspace.com/outofspite

http://www.myspace.com/tonykoehl

and as far as expensive art goes, in my experience in dealing with anything merch related, you get what you pay for.

typically speaking, good art ain't cheap and cheap art ain't good.

on the other hand, some of these higher profile artists might not spend as much time on your art when they have several other higher profile clients. but to me, if i'm paying for art, i expect the artist to treat me like a customer and not just some jackass. if they don't intend on making my work a priority, they shouldn't have taken my money.

the same can be said of printing companies too. we've cut corners several times, only to end up with different/less colors than the original design we sent, shirts that look great at first but fade after 2-3 washings, and a laundry list of other problems. what you end up with is a bunch of shirts you'll have to sell at cost just to get rid of them. it seems far more worth it to spend the extra money going with professionals and making sure you get shirts that people will want to buy and wear around, not just getting any shirts you can just for the sake of having merch to sell.

i don't want to name names right now (they're playing at Fathom tonight), but i seriously know of signed touring bands who get by on having extremely sick merch, and mediocre at best music. i've seen people pay to get into this band's shows, just so they can buy merch and turn around and leave without watching any of the bands play. they're still at a somewhat lower level on the metal ladder, but they sell enough merch to warrant a credit card machine at their table. the fact that their band is financially viable as a full-time job makes labels want them, because that's less time and money they'll have to invest in helping the band get out there.

I wish I could get someone to help me create an Arterial Red logo (not you, Gribbie, lol) that would either be FREE or mega cheap.

Drop me a line and I'll make you one.

if anyone is interested, i do art.
i'm actually doing a new layout in the next couple of days
my website is


http://emptyskystudio.com

Please post again once your page is done. I really dig what you have up so far.

I think i got everything done on it now! Thanks man

http://emptyskystudio.com/

Empty Sky, wow man that's some nice work.

Also, i have been thinking about doing some artwork for others as well.
Currently, i don't have anywhere to post my work but have been slapping a Wraith Manger logo on 'em and posting them in the photo's section of the myspace site.

Contact me if your interested in talking about art. I'll see what i can do for you.
wraithmanger@live.com

killer stuff! love it