Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Prefix Magazine: Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man


It's been a while (about 9 months!) since I made a new illustration for Prefix.
Coupled with other projects, professional and personal,
this one took unusually long for me to finish.
It started with deciding exactly what to show.
Since the song is very realistic in depicting a secret drug deal,
I approached the illo as a snapshot of that deal.
Now getting the right snapshot was the major hurdle,
which took me a lot of thumbnailing and sketching to get to.
Nothing really clicked until I started thinking less about the deal
and more about the environment in which the song takes places.
"Waiting" finds singer Lou Reed in the middle of Harlem (Lexington and 125th)
looking for the drug dealer who is "dressed in black."
If you're familiar with the VU's music, they make songs about people on the fringes of society:
drug dealers, users, prostitutes, trannies etc.
And absorbing the sonic qualities of the song, I wanted the illo to focus 
on the seediness and claustrophobia of the song's milieu.
The thumbnail below with the star is what I eventually end up with.
All in all, I believe I did alright.
Hopefully, I can illustrate more songs in the future.
Shout out to Prefix founder Dave Park for letting me do this project. =)



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