- Making Of -



Geoff holds the controls to tell you about this wonderful adventure. I won't go into detail about the repeated digital file exchanges over the Chunnel and the process of building a tracklist, that's for another tale..












So, the artwork. When we started to think about this subject, Sparky Deathcap (this guy) sent me a few pictures he had to see if I could make something out of them.

I decided to make a sketch from the following two drawings :















We agreed on this sketch, with a few reservations about the background : too plain, too yellow.. "not enough".










Note for later : sketching a sleeve on a computer can go very quickly, but in the end the concrete realisation of it turned out to take much more time than expected. A bit too many details for a handmade sleeve... The result is what you see, but the investment, in terms of time, was pretty substantial for this first release !





The two white areas and the title "Sparky Deathcap" will be painted with stencils. A full-scale picture showing these elements needs to be printed :











But before going to work with the stencils, the background needs to be done. I didn't take photos there, but to sum up it was all about painting a hundred cardboard sleeves like this one :












I texturized the background in order to avoid the feeling of "emptiness" we got with the computer sketch. Now it's time to paint the white areas with the first stencil..
















On the back, the darker lines of the background were doubled to make a cross-ruling. A star-shaped stencil and a few decoration serve as a signature for the label.











Moving "back to the front", cover that is, I decided on a drawing of the "fruits/flowers" and made a few background lines using paint pens. All the splatters in the bottom left corner were made with real British blood, courtesy of Sparky Deathcap - admire the commitment :








Just kidding. Couldn't look better anyway, right ?





Last stage, application of the silver paint
through the final stencil.
















DONE !








Immortalization of the series. Cheeeese..











Progression to the less crafted part : the CD itself, and its label. It's actually pretty complicated to put the credits and the tracklist on a painted sleeve, and I don't want to use some flyer for that purpose.












print
stick
burn
wrap











Until the product can be considered finished, and even satisfying...












By the way... Why do we bother telling you all this rather than keeping an element of mystery to this record ?

Because there won't be a "making of" for every release.. So we've provided this little exposé on the first record to give the listeners and fans a glimpse into Pulsar's approach and philosophy concerning our "crafted" sleeves. This is what we mean by handmade, or Do It Yourself. More or less elaborate, more or less rich ; minimalist or baroque depending on the mood.. But always with this will to make records on a human scale, both unique in their conception and affordable to all..


Is this viable ? It's up to you !



Pulsar Music


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