Death Metal Pop Art
Death Metal Pop Art is a hyper-niche brand I created to really demonstrate that metal may not be for everyone, but it is definitely for anyone.
Role
Illustration and graphic design
Character and prop design
User experience design
Phases
Parody designs
Original art
Original media IP
These are a few of the top selling parody designs
Original art for sales and style development.
I started with a style that’s very popular in the metal and goth scene and while this does well, it’s a style very saturated in the market and dominated by Black Craft Cult.
Realizing this community really enjoyed the goofy, kind of cute aesthetic of video games and cartoons, I went through the following experiments through commissions.
Bright, colourful, and goofy really seemed to be the way to go.
However, I felt like I could also push this style into different vibes and began thinking of the lighting similarly to 3D software. With this approach, I developed a workflow that mimics renderpasses for 3D software.
After developing this rendering process, I worked on pushing composition and lighting as well as experimenting with depth of field.
Inspired by animators like Deekay and Tony Babel, I realized that 2D animation didn’t have to be done frame by frame and didn’t require expensive animation software like ToonBoom Harmony.
Instead, I can use plugins for After Effects which I already have.
Now, I’m working on simplifying my style down for 2D character rigging and reserving my highly rendered look for special moments.
